Meryl Streep
The most Oscar-nominated performer ever. Meryl Streep holds the records for most Oscar and Golden Globe nominations of any performer. How a Yale drama student built that career.
At the Berlinale, 2016: www.GlynLowe.com from Hamburg, Germany, CC BY 2.0
Built on the stage
Meryl Streep studied drama at Vassar College and then at the Yale School of Drama, where she appeared in more than a dozen productions a year and paid her way partly by working as a waitress and typist. She earned her master's degree in 1975.
She started her professional career on the New York stage, and within a year she had a Tony Award nomination. Film came next, with a small part in Julia (1977) and an Oscar nomination for her very next film role.
Three Oscars
Streep's first Academy Award came for Kramer vs. Kramer, as Best Supporting Actress at the 1980 ceremony. Famously, she left the statuette in the ladies' room after her speech, though it was soon found. She won Best Actress for Sophie's Choice at the 1983 ceremony, and a third Oscar followed in 2012.
Few performers have kept winning across such a long span. Her wins are separated by more than 30 years.
A record that keeps growing
Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any performer, with 21. She also holds the record for Golden Globe nominations, with 34, and has won eight competitive Golden Globes. She has three Primetime Emmy Awards and two BAFTAs as well.
Her honors include the AFI Life Achievement Award and an Honorary Palme d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival, presented in 2024.
The craft behind the record
Streep is especially known for accents and voices. Over her career she has played characters from Poland, Denmark, Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and she sang her own songs in musicals such as Mamma Mia!
Her range runs from serious drama to broad comedy, like her turn as a demanding fashion magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). That variety is one reason voters keep coming back to her name.
How the nominations add up
Streep earned Oscar nominations in every decade from the 1970s to the 2010s, in both the leading and supporting categories. Most actors hope for one nomination in a whole career.
Her Golden Globe total is even bigger because the Globes split many categories between drama and comedy or musical, and Streep has been nominated on both sides, as well as for television work. That double strength across genres is rare at the very top of the profession.
