From the Huffington Post:
Q: Because Julia Child was such a character, was there the additional challenge of not doing an impersonation that might veer into parody — Nora Ephron said that you did a Julia Child for her one night after Shakespeare in the Park...
MS: Well, I bet everybody in this room could do their version of Julia Child. To everybody that voice was so familiar and then how do we know whether we’re doing her or Dan Aykroyd’s version of her. Everyone can pull that Bon appetit! out of there. When Nora gave me the script, sometime over a year ago, I just thought that it was so, so beautifully written.
It was an opportunity to not impersonate Julia Child, but to do a couple of things. For me, embodying her or Julie Powell’s idea of her which is what I’m doing – I’m doing an idealized version, but I was also doing an idealized version of my mother who had a similar joi de vivre — an undeniable sense of how to enjoy her life.
Every room she walked into she made brighter. I mean, she was really something. I have a good deal of my father in me which is another kind of sensibility, but I really, all my life, wanted to be more like my mother. So this is my little homage to that spirit. That’s more what I was doing than actually Julia Child.
Q: How did you create tthis organic-feeling relationship; what research did you both do before stepping into their skins?
MS: Well, Stanley and I are often on opposite sides in a very famous Charades game every Christmas. We’ve been at each other’s throats like married people for a really long time, many years [laughs].
We knew each other in that way and I just sort of am in love with him from afar anyway with the totality of the man, from his acting to directing work and in every way. So does everyone who knows him. He’s just real treat to work with. It wasn’t a tough job to imagine being in love with him.
ST: We have to go now. We are in a hotel after all. Thanks for coming [laughs].
For me it was easy, too. Probably most people in the world I, too, have been in love with Meryl Streep for many, many years. We’d done The Devil Wears Prada together which was really fun and we knew each other a bit socially before that so for me [doing this one] was awesome.
It was incredibly easy. You also make it easy because you’re so comfortable. I’m always a little nervous when I start shooting and I was very nervous to play around with that.
MS: We’re you nervous when we started?
ST: I was so nervous. I was. You made me feel so comfortable. It was nice.
The rest of the charming pair at the Huffington Post.
