I recently stumbled upon the Meryl Streep commencement speech given in May 2010 at Barnard College. I include the link here.
It is twenty-eight minutes long and I definitely think that it is worth the time it takes to watch it. I found her speech to be without hubris and exquisitely authentic. She starts us off laughing and then we realize that this woman is not fluff. She really has something to say.
Here is an excerpt from the transcript that is toward the end of her speech. Enjoy! And if you feel compelled, please let me know what you think of this Meryl Streep commencement speech.
…You know, I gave a speech at Vassar 27 years ago. It was a really big hit. Everyone loved it, really. Tom Brokaw said it was the very best commencement speech he had ever heard and of course I believed this. And it was much easier to construct than this one. It came out pretty easily because back then I knew so much. I was a new mother, I had two Academy Awards and it was all coming together so nicely. I was smart and I understood boiler plate and what sounded good and because I had been on the squad in high school, earnest full-throated cheerleading was my specialty so that’s what I did but now, I feel like I know about 1/16th of what that young woman knew. Things don’t seem as certain today. Now I’m 60, I have four adult children who are all facing the same challenges you are. I’m more sanguine about all the things that I still don’t know and I’m still curious about.
What I do know about success, fame, celebrity would fill another speech. How it separates you from your friends, from reality, from proportion. Your own sweet anonymity, a treasure you don’t even know you have until it’s gone. How it makes things tough for your family and whether being famous matters one bit, in the end, in the whole flux of time. I know I was invited here because of that. How famous I am, how many awards I’ve won and while I am overwhelmingly proud of the work that, believe me, I did not do on my own. I can assure you that awards have very little bearing on my own personal happiness, my own sense of wellbeing and purpose in the world. That comes from studying the world feelingly, with empathy in my work. It comes from staying alert and alive and involved in the lives of the people that I love and the people in the wider world who need my help. No matter what you see me or hear me saying when I’m on your TV holding a statuette spewing, that’s acting.
Being a celebrity has taught me to hide, but being an actor has opened my soul.
May we all find that true thing that opens our soul.
I am an ex-shrink who writes novels. Check out my books here.
This post gladdened my heart. I love Meryl. She has brought more class and quality to her profession in the course of her incomparable career than all the Lindsay Lohans and Charlie Sheens and other celeb brats can take out of it. For all those who say one can’t have a “normal” life and success at the same time because of the “pressures” of celebrity, I say take a look at Meryl. She’s a category in herself.
And while you’re sharing videos about her, here’s one I’ve stumbled across that I love. A hilarious tribute to her at the AFI a few years back. It will make you laugh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRwFyiF2JEk
Thanks for posting this. My favorite line was actually close to the beginning where she says, “If you have been touched by the success fairy, people think you know why.” I read a few writing/writer’s blogs, and particularly with those blogs by writers who are not published (or websites with articles for writers who are not published), they act as if there is an answer, a formula, a way to achieve writing success – which to them is the holy grail of publication. No one seems to want to admit that it is, indeed, the success fairy who is responsible far more than how you crafted that query letter or whether or not your ms follows a trending topic.
The success fairy reminds me of something Whoopi Goldberg said when she appeared on “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” At the end, they have a question and answer period, and a student asked her how she had gotten to be such an accomplished actress, and she said (something like), “If you want to be a good actor, you can do that. Study. Work on your craft. Practice, practice, practice. You *will* become an accomplished actor if you never give up on your craft or yourself. Now, if you’re talking about being famous, that’s another story. You can’t make that happen. It’s all chance, and no one can stand up here and tell you how to get famous. But being a good actor. You can do that.”
Excellent comments, as always. I love the readers of this blog! YOU are a class act. Thanks for the video, John. And Scout, I really liked the success fairy line, too, and I totally agree with what you said about “the holy grail of publication.” So much of it all comes down to luck. That said, may the “success fairy” sprinkle a little luck on all of us!