Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Mon 24 August 2026 17:45, UK
Naming the greatest actor of all time is a question that has plagued film fans for decades, and realistically, it’s not one that can ever be answered. However, if you were to use the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a metric, then the best to ever do it might just be Meryl Streep.
Though Katherine Hepburn might have the most Academy Awards as an actor at four, her great rival is just behind her with three. More importantly, while Hepburn was nominated 12 times across her career, Streep has done so an astonishing 21 times. Starting with The Deer Hunter in 1979 and going right up to The Post in 2018, she has been represented at just 20% of every Oscars ceremony in history.
We can’t rule out the possibility that she could add to that number before she bows out of the acting game, and as one of the most versatile actors of this or any generation, Streep is thus an idol to many, but if you were to ask the woman herself, you shouldn’t pay her any attention whatsoever.
In an interview with People in 2026, she shocked everyone when she proclaimed that she “doesn’t know how to act,” and while you might think that this is just a legend trying to stay humble or making a joke, she was 100% serious.
“I don’t know how people do it,” she doubled down, “I go into everything, not knowing how people do it. And you sort of feel and listen and pick it up as you go along. I don’t have a method. But you have a feeling you know what you need to do.”
To illustrate her point, she referenced the Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman that she’d seen recently. She was keen to praise the cast, which includes Nathan Lane, Christopher Abbott, and Ben Ahlers, but one performer particularly caught her eye.
“Laurie Metcalf just blew my mind,” she gushed, “I thought, ‘Well, I better just retire, because I don’t know how she did that. What an artist’”.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Metcalf is one of those actors who you’ve definitely seen multiple times, even if you don’t recognise her name or face. She started in the 1970s, making some waves in the following decade, including appearing as a cast member for a single episode of Saturday Night Live.
Her big TV break was on the sitcom Roseanne, and younger fans might know her as the voice of Andy’s mum in the Toy Story franchise or the mother of the titular character in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. She took on the role of Linda Loman in the 2026 revival of Miller’s play, the wife of the titular character, serving as the backbone of the Loman family, desperately devoted to her struggling husband.
Streep wasn’t the only one who thought Metcalf did a great job, as the latter won the Tony Award for ‘Best Featured Actress in a Play’, appropriately bringing her career total to three.
