10 Actors Insulted By Movie Roles They Were Offered
3. Meryl Streep Threatens To Walk Over Salary Negotiations
Meryl Streep is a Hollywood icon, and if her name is attached to a project, it's almost guaranteed to be a success. She just has a way of delivering such a commanding performance, critics and fans can't help but love her no matter who she plays.
For The Devil Wears Prada, she portrayed a tough-as-nails businesswoman who refused to take anything lying down. As it happens, Streep was channeling her future role when she was first offered it.
Ultimately, she did take the job, but when the time came to negotiate her salary, she not only was insulted, she steadfastly refused to accept it.
“The offer was, to my mind, slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project… There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.”
In truth, she wanted to take the role, but it was important to her - and to all women in the industry - that her work be appropriately valued. She refused what they offered her, and ended up walking out of the negotiation with twice their initial commitment.