Meryl Streep receives honorary Berlin Film Festival Award

Feb 14, 2012, 19:01 GMT

Berlin - The Berlin Film Festival presented Hollywood doyenne Meryl Streep an honorary award for her life achievement at a ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday.

Often called the world's leading actress, Streep, 62, has been nominated 17 times for an Academy Award.

Streep has twice won an Oscar - the first in 1979 for her role in the family drama Kramer vs Kramer. But she could be heading for third at next month's Academy Awards in Los Angeles for her role as the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

But despite all the honours and prizes she has garnered over the years, Steep said she still finds the award process 'very odd.'

'Suddenly you feel like you are in a sporting event,' she told a press conference in Berlin. 'Suddenly you are doing calisthenics for the super bowl. It's an out-of-body experience.'

Streep received the Berlin Film Festival's honorary Golden Bear just two days after she was awarded a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) prize for her acclaimed performance of the former conservative leader who ruled Britain from 1975 to 1990.

She has also won a Golden Globe for best leading actress for her role in The Iron Lady, which was directed by Britain's Phyllida Lloyd.

Born in New Jersey, Streep has notched up a total of 14 BAFTA nominations in her film career, which stretches back more than 35 years.

Since then, she has played a variety of roles in more than 20 films including Silkwood, Out of Africa, The Hours, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark and The Devil Wears Prada. In Mamma Mia, she surprised her fans and critics alike by showing she could sing.

In 1982 she won her second Oscar for her role as a mother in a Nazi death camp in the film Sophie's Choice.

'I always think I'm playing the same person. I find what is like me in the person,' said Streep, who was presented with a Russian doll of herself by a Moscow journalist during the press conference.

She said she was even able to identify with some of the characteristics of Margaret Thatcher.

Streep said a liberal New York actress like her had always harboured suspicions about Thatcher. 'A friend of Reagan. Bad. Frumpy clothes.'

But during the making of The Iron Lady she was surprised by many of the things she learned about the former Tory Party leader, including that she was pro-abortion.

'She stood against the tide,' said Streep. 'She did not check the polls when she wanted to make a decision.'

This was despite the levels of hatred and blood lust she faced during her term as prime minister, she said.

While Streep believes that Thatcher 'would have been dragged to the altar of feminism kicking and screaming,' she said her success in rising to the top of British politics helped to pave the way for other women to climb the professional ladder.

'She was a feminist, whether she like it or not,' said Streep. Now approaching her fourth decade in the movie business, Streep conceded that that the hardest thing she faced as an actress was meeting expectations and appearing fresh in each role she took on.

In the case of The Iron Lady, Streep was helped along with the stresses and strains of playing Thatcher by the director, who would present her with a gin and tonic at the end of the day's shooting.