Let’s kick off with some inspirational quotes by the magnificent Meryl Streep.

– Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.

– All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.

– All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really…that’s the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn’t filled with inspiration, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?

– You just have to keep on doing what you do. It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.

– Everybody is interesting. Everybody has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.

– We’re all sustained by relationships. Sometimes it’s by marriages, great friendships, by a sustaining relationship to a parent. But that’s the glue of society.

– The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

On confidence: Meryl Streep admits she has “varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing…. You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent. It could be about not feeling able to achieve a certain scene or about an emotion you feel you weren’t able to get to… Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing… any one of those things.”

– Process is clunky, process looks like bad acting, process is not anything you should let anybody see…. It’s like we show you a new building and we show you the plumbing and the sewer line.

– We need art as much as we need good works. You need it like food. You need it for inspiration, to keep going on the days that you’re low. We need each other in that way

– Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.

– People want what they want. Sometimes you just have to walk in defiance of it and just be yourself.