'You Changed the Way We Look at Women' : Meryl Streep Honored at Cannes by Tearful Juliette Binoche

Meryl Streep is kicking off the 2024 Cannes Film Festival with emotional tributes.

On May 14, the three-time Oscar winner, 74, was presented with an honorary Palme d'or — the festival's highest honor — at the opening night ceremony.

Actress Juliette Binoche presented Streep with the honor, which comes 35 years after Streep made her Cannes debut with 1988's Evil Angels, for which she won the festival's best actress award.

Binoche, 60, cried as she spoke about Streep's impact, referencing some of her classic roles, including the 1978 miniseries Holocaust, 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer and 1982's Sophie's Choice, among others.

"You have carved out an indelible place for yourself in the history of cinema," Binoche told Streep onstage. "You are an international treasure."

"What I could sense while watching your films is that you have to fulfill your dreams, our dreams and beyond. You change the way we look at women," she added. "You changed the way we look at women in the cinema world and also helping us to look at ourselves differently."

When Streep took the microphone to accept the honor, she told the audience she coincidentally watched Binoche's 2023 film The Taste of Things and joked, "I had to go to bed, I was crying so hard."

After choking up herself — and quipp -

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ing that Americans often mispronounce Cannes — Streep thanked her longtime agent Kevin Huvane and her hair and makeup stylist Roy Helen, the latter of whom she deemed "responsible for almost every single one of the characters that I have ever played in the last half century."

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"For me, watching those clips, it's like looking out the window of a bullet train, watching my youth fly into my middle age right on to where I am standing on the stage tonight," she said.

Streep also reflected on her first time at Cannes in 1988, noting that she was skeptical about the future of her career when she premiered Evil Angels at the festival.

"Thirty-five years ago when I was here for the first time, I was already a mother of three. I was about to turn 40 and I thought that my career was over," she said. "And that was not an unrealistic expectation for actresses at that time... But my mother, who was usually right about everything, said to me, 'Meryl, darling, you'll see it all goes so fast. So fast.' And it does. Except for my speech, which is too long."

The Cannes Film Festival is running now through May 25.

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