God Bless This Podcast Dedicated Entirely to Meryl Streep Films
What About Meryl? is a damn treasure.
Welcome to PodFodder, where I talk to the people behind podcasts about why they created their podcasts. Yeah. Cool. Let’s get into it.
Today’s PodFodder features Danita Steinberg and Emily Gagne, the creators of the very amazing What About Meryl? podcast, where they watch and discuss Meryl Streep’s entire body of work, from Sophie’s Choice to The Devil Wears Prada. Whew.
You can subscribe to the podcast here.
What goes into centering a podcast around a single person, and what happens once the Meryl stream (somehow eventually) dries up? Let’s jump in and find out.
The Queue: You were told to think of this one beforehand. Describe your podcast in haiku form.
Danita Steinberg: Meryl is Queen so/Danita and Emily/Talk of nothing else.
The Queue: First things first, how did your podcast get started?
DS: Emily texted me in August and basically said, “Do you want to start a Meryl Streep podcast with me?” And I said, “More than anything.” That was it. We started a month and a half later. Emily, how did you come up with the idea?
Emily Gagne: I’ve always wanted to do a podcast. I actually tried to do a podcast before this — it was three women talking about television, and I was a TV critic back then. It didn’t work out. At one point, a person wanted to leave the podcast because she got pregnant. I didn’t feel right about it, and I was always waiting for the right idea.
Danita and I had been friends for quite some time, and we finally started hanging out around last year. One of the things we bonded over was lady actresses — Meryl being one of the biggest ones. There was something that was recurring and there was something that we were both uniquely passionate about. I naturally thought, why don’t we share this with the world?
I just felt like it was a passionate perspective on this topic, so I thought why not try it? Danita was game, so it was awesome.
TQ: Of course the big question when you have an entire podcast surrounding a single person is, why Meryl? What have you learned about Meryl since starting the podcast?
EG: I think we picked Meryl because she’s the one of the biggest examples of these older woman actress that we love; she’s also the most popular.
As Donald Trump said famously after she made her speech at the Golden Globes, [people thought] she was “overrated,” people like to say that “we’re over Meryl Streep.” We wanted to do a deep dive into her career; we thought it was a good opportunity. Most people in most age groups know who she is, but at the same time, I don’t know if anyone has done this kind of look into her career before.
TQ: She’s definitely interesting because she is almost like a chameleon with her movies. Nowadays, she plays certain roles a lot more than others, but I’m sure that you realize that she’s everywhere. You can get a lot of different types of movies with her — save, like, horror movies.
EG: Oh, I wish.
DS: She has a lot of variety, and out of the well-known actresses of her era, I think she’s done some of the best work because she always got the cream of the crop choices. Especially now — post-Mama Mia or post-The Devil Wears Prada — she’s had a real renaissance. She’s getting so much work still. I think it’s unheard of for a woman — who is now past 60 — to still be getting good work.
We just found that really interesting and exciting. People do say she’s overrated. We wanted to look at her work and say, no, she did so much good stuff.
EG: We really wanted to look at her past work — like Sophie’s Choice, which was her first role that she won a “Best Actress” Oscar for — and go, “Is this really that great? Or are we inflating this image of her?”
The truth is, that we’ve learned thus far, is that she truly is exceptional. Even when you watch some of her movies that aren’t great, she is always amazing. She’s really doing her best and getting deep into the characters. Something like Sophie from Sophie’s Choice is incredible.
DS: It’s like she invented acting.
EG: She’s also chosen such interesting roles over her career, and she’s also always played complicated women. You feel conflicted watching a lot of her characters, and it’s sparked a lot of conversation.
I guess one more thing I want to add is that we just wanted to talk about her because we love her. We feel like she comes up in conversations a lot. Somehow, magically, this ended up being a perfect time to do this. We started the podcast in October of last year, and then she had her Golden Globes speech.
DS: She’s been a meme.
EG: Yes, she’s been a meme! It really worked out for us that people are talking about her in new ways. It gives us stuff to talk about, in addition to talking about her movies. We get to talk about what she’s doing now, that she’s cosplayed as Diane Keaton at an AFI event. We are always learning new things about Meryl.
TQ: What does the process of choosing which films or topics to discuss look like? Is it more on the spontaneous side — where you watch the film and chat about it after? Or do you plan out before your chat about the film? Where do you fall in terms of process?
DS: Well, Emily had the great idea of not watching the films in chronological order to keep things fresh. [Meryl] does go through periods where she does serious stuff, or does comedy, or does a couple musicals. If we were watching it chronologically, it might get stale for us. What we did is we put most of her films (we left out some of the animated ones and the television ones) — which ended up being 50 films — into a little box on little pieces of paper. At the end of every week, we draw out a different film and that’s the one that we watch. It’s been totally random but we’ve had a couple guests on where we get them to choose.
And then, as far as our conversation goes, we always watch the movie separately. We always try our best to not talk about [the movie] during the week that we’re in between recording. We have an organic conversation about it. We don’t really plan, we do some research on the movie — box office stuff, reviews, any trivia, and what Meryl did to prepare for the role. However, we also talk about how we feel about the movie, whether we saw it when it came out, or if we’ve never seen it.
EG: I think it’s the balance between research and personal anecdotes. We don’t want it to be too casual, so if somebody’s a big Meryl fan, they can still enjoy it and learn something new about Meryl. At the same time, if somebody’s not a huge Meryl fan and they want to listen to something fun, they can still enjoy it too and not feel bogged down by too much research or factual stuff.
TQ: Let’s say you get to the end of Meryl’s filmography. Are you looking to end the podcast project there? Are you going to focus on a different actor or actress?
DS: Yeah, we don’t know. We’ve talked about it a bunch; it’s hard because we have other actresses that we love and we have talked about doing. Emily would love to do a Wynona Rider podcast, I would love to do a Bette Midler podcast. We would both would really love to do a Susan Sarandon podcast, Whoopi Goldberg podcast, or Bette Davis. We’ve talked a lot about who we could do.
It’s hard because as much as I love those women, I don’t love them as much as I love Meryl Streep. This podcast came about so naturally that anything else would feel forced. But we’ll also see when we get there. We’ll be done with this October or November.
EG: If we are going at the pace we’ve set. We’ve thought about stretching it out a little more. As Danita mentioned, we haven’t put in some of her movies or her television work. Also, Meryl is still working. I feel like even if we finish with all the movies that she’s already made, once the Mary Poppins movie comes out we can do an episode about that, once the Steven Spielberg movie comes out, we can do an episode about that. I think it’s like a continuing podcast. I think it’s sparked something in us. It’s an exciting professional relationship between us. I think we work really well together, and definitely if we can come up with another idea, we will do something else.
DS: A couple weeks ago, we hosted a screening at a movie theater here in Toronto. We screened She Devil and co-presented it with the theatre. We had the best time. We made Meryl Streep pins, we did a little intro, we did an all-Meryl Streep pre-show with interview clips. Emily and I are so passionate about movies and we’re really active in the movie scene here in Toronto, so that was super fun for us to do. We want to do more; we want to do the River Wild this summer.
EG: Just bringing Meryl to the masses.
TQ: In your mind, regardless of content, what do you think makes a good podcast?
DS: For me, I think, what it boils down to is the hosts’ dynamics — that’s so key for me. The better the relationship between the hosts, the more fun it is for listeners. For me, listening to podcasts is like hanging out with friends. I love walking down the street with a podcast in my ear, and I feel like I’m a fly on the wall of a really great conversation. That, for me, is important.
EG: It’s a mix between good production value and good content. It doesn’t have to be “high production,” because obviously, not all podcasters have a studio to go to or producers. That’s part of what’s great about podcasting is that it’s very grassroots. As long as you can hear everybody, it’s not too echoey, that’s key. I hate when I know it’s good content and I can’t hear them properly or there’s weird static or noise in the background.
I also think to have a really compelling subject matter that the hosts themselves are passionate about is a huge deal. I’ll listen to a podcast that I’m not that interested in, and if they make it interesting with their passion for it and their knowledge of it, I’ll keep listening.
TQ: What advice do you have for someone who is just getting into podcasting?
EG: I would say, or actually Meryl says this, start by starting. Make sure you have a mic, because we didn’t for the first couple episodes and those episodes suffered. Get a mic, it doesn’t have to be an expensive one, and just start. Think of a unique idea and just do it.
DS: Just get going on it. Don’t be too concerned with being perfect. And have fun with it. I think that’s the key. Don’t do a podcast on something that you don’t think is a good idea — if you’re not that into it, don’t do it. Try to find another person that is as passionate as you; if not, do it by yourself. Don’t force it, because people will be able to tell if you don’t really care about the thing. Just have fun! For us, even though we are working and we have to prep for it, it’s fun, and that’s why we continue to do it and why we want to share it with people.
Transcription provided by Anthony Berteaux.
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