Outspoken Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep spoke at the Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom Awards earlier this week, recounting her own life-changing experiences with physical violence.
She told a particularly memorable story about a time when she interfered to stop another woman from being abused. "I just went completely nuts and went after this man," she said. In a strange twist, she added, "Ask Cher, she was there."
Apparently Streep's instincts paid off, because between herself and Cher, they were able to scare the man off and he ran away. Streep also revealed another violent encounter, in which she "played dead" until the beatings stopped. "I learned something about life that I wouldn't have known otherwise," she said.
"I was changed by these events on a cellular level," she continued. "Because women do know something particular about coming to the danger place. We come to it disadvantaged through the many millennia preceding our present moment and because of our vulnerability we anticipate danger, we expect it. We're hyper alert to it."
She went on to praise the room filled with female journalists, specifically Christiane Amanpour, Rachel Nichols, Jodi Kantor and Maggie Haberman, as well as the five journalists recently murdered in Mexico.
Streep recently finished filming the Steven Spielberg-directed movie The Post, in which she portrays the Washington Post's first female publisher, Kay Graham.
Watch the actress's full address below.
She told a particularly memorable story about a time when she interfered to stop another woman from being abused. "I just went completely nuts and went after this man," she said. In a strange twist, she added, "Ask Cher, she was there."
Apparently Streep's instincts paid off, because between herself and Cher, they were able to scare the man off and he ran away. Streep also revealed another violent encounter, in which she "played dead" until the beatings stopped. "I learned something about life that I wouldn't have known otherwise," she said.
"I was changed by these events on a cellular level," she continued. "Because women do know something particular about coming to the danger place. We come to it disadvantaged through the many millennia preceding our present moment and because of our vulnerability we anticipate danger, we expect it. We're hyper alert to it."
She went on to praise the room filled with female journalists, specifically Christiane Amanpour, Rachel Nichols, Jodi Kantor and Maggie Haberman, as well as the five journalists recently murdered in Mexico.
Streep recently finished filming the Steven Spielberg-directed movie The Post, in which she portrays the Washington Post's first female publisher, Kay Graham.
Watch the actress's full address below.
