Although Susan kept me busy working in all these movies, in film — then as now — I have to admit I lack screen technique. In fact, it wasn’t until I worked with Annette Bening (Warren Beatty is very lucky to have ended up married to her) and Jeremy Irons on Being Julia (2004) that I began to get an insight into the art of acting for the camera. Jeremy Irons offered me some notes and rather than resenting it, ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me how to act?’ I just thought, ‘Oh, please, yes! Thank you!’[18]
I don’t quite remember what Jeremy’s exact words were, but it was about not doing too much too quickly, to reserve something different for each take. On set, you particularly shouldn’t turn fast; for film work, you have to move more slowly so the camera can capture your movements and gestures. Another nugget was, ‘Close-ups are everything. Always reserve your best stuff for the close-ups, because when the character is looking into the camera, or the camera is close, that’s when your audience can see inside your soul, when they look into your eyes. And don’t blink.’ He encouraged me to think about my advantages and build on them. I have big, expressive eyes and my face mirrors a lot, it expresses what I feel, and that can be useful. I tend to do things to excess, so it was a valuable insight to realise that it’s not a bad idea to rein it in, to save it for later. Jeremy gave me good advice — people are always more interesting if they’re hiding something.
I would love to be enigmatic. It hasn’t happened. My need for constant attention is the seat of the overacting. It is really saying, ‘Me, me, me, me! Don’t look at the others: look at me. I’m more interesting!’
Let me tell you about working with Streisand. The first time I met Barbra was in the early eighties when she was casting her 1983 movie Yentl, an adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story about a Jewish girl who pretended to be a boy in order to study the Talmud. She had spent over a decade trying to get this film made, eventually producing, co-writing (with Jack Rosenthal), directing and starring in the film herself, which went on to earn three Oscar nominations.
I had to go out to Wembley where she was holding the casting. Barbra is a prima donna, but she has a right to be, so I was fascinated and excited to have the chance of meeting and maybe working with her. My agent told me that I was being seen for the part of a village woman, so I thought about how I wanted to appear to Barbra at our meeting. I decided to look the part. I came dressed in the sort of clothes one might wear to do the housework,[19] and laden with two well-worn shopping bags.
I went into the casting room and there was this tiny little person sitting cross-legged on a sofa, a cap completely covering her hair so you saw just her luminous face. I plonked my shopping bags on the floor and then I sat down heavily, as if exhausted by life.
Barbra was extremely friendly. She said, ‘How old are you?’ I said forty-one. At that she exclaimed, ‘Oh, you’re forty-one! I’m forty-one!’ I looked at her and said, ‘Well, fucking hell, you look fantastic for forty-one. How incredible!’ I meant it, and she was quite pleased. Then she asked me what I’d been doing, so I told her about filming Reds with Warren Beatty. She asked what that had been like, and I said, ‘Well, he’s an absolute bastard.’ I told her about our meeting in his trailer and the ‘Do you fuck?’ story. Barbra loved all that gossip. I liked her; she was a huge star even then but she was approachable and fun, and I got the part.
Yentl was primarily shot in the small town of Žatec (northwest of Prague), which filled in for rural Poland in the early twentieth century. It was the first American production that had been filmed in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in almost a decade and when the plane touched down, there was a mass of expectant fans thronging the airport to catch sight of Barbra Streisand. Barbra is shy and nervous; she didn’t want to exit the plane with all those people there. She said to me, ‘You go.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You go out, Miriam.’ I said, ‘You think they want to see me? Come on, Barbra, they want you! You’re the one they’re waiting for. Now, go out there and be Barbra Streisand.’
And she did: she stood up, took a deep breath and then she visibly became Barbra Streisand, the world-famous actress and singer. Thus transformed, head held high and face beaming, she walked down the steps from the plane and the crowd roared and cheered in welcome. It was fascinating to observe: before she went down those steps, she had to become another person — she had to become ‘Barbra Streisand’. She couldn’t be the Barbra Streisand that she was, because that wasn’t enough. So, she gathered herself, she summoned up her film-star image to face the curious public. I think that her authentic, natural ‘self’ is quite small and shy, not wanting all this fuss, but she knows she has to do it, so she gets out there.
When I told this story to Heather, she said that in Indonesia people consciously present themselves in public, so they actually have a phrase in Dutch to convey that moment when people have to gather themselves up in readiness to perform: ‘drempelvrees’ — ‘fear of thresholds’. That’s what Barbra was doing. We all do it to a certain extent, of course. Perhaps we don’t think that we officially present ourselves in public; we think that we are carrying our persona inside and outside — but we don’t. I know that I don’t: I am a different person in public — I’m more upbeat, more fun, more outgoing than I really am in private.
Yentl was Barbra Streisand’s pet project — it was an important work, dedicated to her beloved dead father. She was completely in charge of every aspect of the production; every detail had to be absolutely right, and she never relaxed. Consequently, she was tough on all involved. When she came on set, she looked around with a gimlet eye, checking that everything was just so. She was hands-on and sharp as a tack. I remember her arriving on set on one occasion, spotting a book that was upside down and instantly correcting it.
The next time I met Barbra was about ten years ago, on The Guilt Trip (2012) in which she starred with Seth Rogen. An offer arrived at my agent from the director: ‘Could you come over? It’s only a day’s filming and we’ll give you $1,000 and a first-class trip.’ I asked my agent to reply as follows: ‘Thank you so much for the offer. Make it $25,000 and I might come.’ And they did. They were just trying it on. They flew me out first class and it was all extremely enjoyable. Barbra said, ‘Oh, I remember you!’ It was a long time ago and she’s met a lot of people, so it was nice to be remembered, but she’s not really interested in other people and, at the end, she left the set without saying goodbye to anybody. She read her lines from the autocue, which had been placed behind the person she was acting with. One of the other actresses wanted a photograph with her and she refused. And I thought, ‘What a pity?’ The only time I’ve spurned a member of the public was once when, desperate to go to the loo, a lady got in my way demanding a selfie. And I said, ‘Get out of my way or I’ll pee on your foot.’ She moved aside with some alacrity, but I felt a bit mean.
18
He and Sinéad own a castle in Cork. One day, I hope they’ll invite me there. No harm in mentioning it.