Meryl Streep talks 'Devil Wears Prada 2'

And we are so happy to welcome back three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep ahead of tonight's premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Welcome back. Thank you. So what has Miranda Priestley been up to? She's been getting older, like 20 years older and smarter, meaner. Meaner? No, it's not possible. No, I don't know. It was fun. It was really fun to come back and revisit a character 20 years later. Who gets to do that? It's a real privilege to be able to do that. Not everyone can do that. I have to ask you this. This role, has it changed your view on the fashion world? Because I understand that you attended your first ever fashion show last fall. Yeah, I did. Well, I'm not a fashionista. Anybody who knows me in real life will attest to that. But, you know, I do have a pretty good closet over the years because of promotional tours and things. And my daughters go in and raid it. So, no, my view of the fashion world is one of awe. I think great design is irreplaceable. It's human creativity. And it's that that's under siege right now in every business, in every outlet. And so it was fun to come back and revisit these characters confronting that new reality. You know, Anna Wintour in real life, I mean, she made it look so effortless in many ways. And we know it's anything but. Yes. Well, the first film, as people know, was based on a book written by someone who had worked for her. And I wasn't interested in replicating Anna or copying her. I wanted to be my own self, you know, and have my own Miranda Priestly. And in this one, I get free reign because it is absolutely unrelated to anything except what came out of Aline Brosh McKenna, our screenwriter's head. It does seem, though, like Anna's had fun with this this time around. Yeah. But I think she I think she's such a good sport and she's a quite brilliant person. And she realized that the first movie was very good for her. She told me that she had a conversation with Mutia Prada, where they were both lamenting the fact of the first film before it came out. And Anna said, well, this is very good for both. And I think it ended up being that way. I think that's true. Let's take a look at a clip. The models were encouraged to mill around like starving goats in the parking lot of a methadone clinic in New Jersey. Well, what am I not allowed to say? Methadone, New Jersey. Anyway, this was our first time using this photographer so we can do a reshoot. Just, you know, fix it. We see you there with Stanley Tucci, your third film with him. I adore him. And, you know, that's that's what I mean. It was just like getting together with old friends. He and Emily have become related since the first movie. That's right. Yeah. She and Annie were 22. And Stanley and I were already a hundred and three. But we did a lot of joking about that. But he's so great. What a what a great together. The entire cast and Annie, as you put it, Anne Hathaway, Emily would like to see how they've grown in their profession. Well, they're girls. They were girls. And now they're women. They're mothers. They both have two kids who are entering adolescence. And I mean, it's a different world, too. When we shot the first film, the iPhone was yet to come out. That's hard to believe. It really is. It came out the next year after The Devil. So, yeah, this is a different sort of thing that we're living in now. And we're seeing the New York premiere tonight. You've really been on a whirlwind tour all over the world. Yeah, we have. We went to Mexico City and Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai. I was in Shanghai. I didn't even have to fix my clock because now it's 815 at night. It was amazing. But has it taken you? I mean, people are just clamoring everywhere around the world for the release. That was the real surprise to me because I'm not online. I don't have Instagram or TikTok or any of those things, so I don't know what's going on. And I didn't realize that there was this sort of banked and seething or not seething, throbbing. Yes. I don't think I'm going in the right place with this. It was just kids were waiting. Women were waiting. Gay men were waiting. And regular men were waiting because this was the first movie that I've ever done that straight men came up and said, I know how you feel. I know how you feel. So that was nice. And just to feel these. I mean, I think I must have met 200 young women journalists over the course of this global tour. We're only halfway done. I'll be on a gurney after. We're going London next and then L.A. and then rehab or something. But there were so many young women who were just who had said, you know, this first the first movie made me want to be a journalist, made me want to dress up, made me want to have fun. I mean, so optimistic. And I think that energy is retained in this one, in in the face of everything. That's right, because it must be you create a little bit of anxiety when a film like that made such an impact to try to bring back the character. Well, nobody wanted to do it. You know, they wanted to make a sequel from the minute it hit. And it was such a they were surprised that it was a hit because it was a, you know, chick flick and they never think that they're going to do any business. But this did. And, you know, the next one was proposed. But we had to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait till the right script came. Yeah. You know, it's big when Deborah O'Connell is here, when she is here in the studio and you see the amount of people that are here that just gives you a little bit of it. Can you just show the number of people that are here that are never here? But to have that kind of. Go to the movie, don't you? If there's something about this film, there's something about the cast that is just it's just captivating and it's something that and I when I said to you, I was like, thank you. We need this right now. It's kind of like a little little injection of joy. Yes. Yeah, because it is about the beauty people can put into the world. It's and it's about commerce and it's about, you know, art and commerce. What what is predominant, you know, used to be it used to be the Borgias underwrote the great Renaissance art all through Italy. And now the it almost seems like business is out front of the creativity of people. And so we're coming up from behind and recapturing, you know, make us all smile. Yeah, we are. I think your future, I hope you feel that future is human. Thank you. Thanks for coming in. Devil Wears Prada two hits theaters on May 1st world premiere tonight at Lincoln Center. You can watch the live stream of the red carpet on Hulu and Disney Plus starts at 530 Eastern. Oh, my God. Really? Yes. Yes. Never be done.