Meryl Streep says Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest ganged up on her during a project they made together. Three Hollywood veterans in one room usually means polite applause and carefully sprayed hair. This room, apparently, had other plans. The story surfaced through a mother-daughter chat, and Streep came out of it sounding delighted rather than defeated. Old friends and plenty of playful pressure explain the rest of it.

While most disputes fizzle into press releases, this friendly tussle ended in laughter, and the full story starts right below.

Meryl Streep remembers being outnumbered by Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest on the set of Let Them All Talk. The story came out through Chloe Malle during a Vogue sit-down with her mother, Bergen, which made it feel like family gossip.

“She and Diane Wiest ganged up on me,” Malle recalled Streep telling her.

Streep then added, as Malle recalled, “It was like wrestling, and I loved it.”

It was, by Streep’s account, a surprisingly cheerful take on being double-teamed.

During the Vogue sit-down, Malle raised a recent interview with Greta Gerwig and Anna Wintour, where Gerwig praised Streep as an excellent leader on film sets. Streep described Bergen as someone who leans in when working on a set. The film was Let Them All Talk, a 2020 Steven Soderbergh release on HBO Max, set aboard the Queen Mary 2. Improvised dialogue makes a friendly wrestling match easy to believe.

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As Bergen and Wiest won a friendly round on set, Streep once played a shrewder game at the negotiating table.

Meryl Streep was nearly 56 and weighing retirement when The Devil Wears Prada came calling, as she told Today. The studio made an offer, and she turned it down. She then doubled her ask, and the studio agreed right away. Streep told Jenna Bush Hager that she felt sure the film would be a hit and that the studio needed her. She wanted the role, but she was fine without it.

That stance gave audiences Miranda Priestly, a chilling boss with an icy stare and a calm, controlled voice, and it also made the 2006 film and its sequel possible. Streep then starred in Mamma Mia! in 2008, which earned $706.4 million worldwide and led to a 2018 sequel. The Iron Lady brought her a third Oscar in 2012. Streep can make a studio say yes to double the pay, but Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest proved that two old friends on a set are a tougher crowd.

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