"It's everything. It's like life. It's funny and it's terrifying." That's how Meryl Streep described her newest film, John Wells' adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "August: Osage County," during a recent chat with Deadline.com's Pete Hammond and Streep's co-stars, Margo Martindale and Abigail Breslin.
Streep stars in the film as Violet, the drug-addled matriarch of the Weston family, and she has earned significant awards buzz for the performance: the three-time Oscar winner scored nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globes for Best Actress, and it's expected that she'll compete in that category at the Academy Awards in March.
"It retains something of the original," Streep said of the film version of "August: Osage County," which playwright Tracy Letts adapted himself. "I always thought it was interesting that he named her Violet, because just with an 'n,' she'd be Violent. That association was always in my mind. Her mind was so turbulent. She was smart and funny and she knew that, but everything else had been cut off. She was punishing the world for her own wrecked life. It was satisfying to play that kind of character."
Indeed, Violet and her eldest daughter, played in the film by Julia Roberts, engage in a knock-down, drag-out fight in the film following a particularly contentious family inner. As Streep told Hammond, no stunt doubles were used for that altercation. "You do sort of black out. I don't remember [the fight]. The next day, I had a lot of dings and bruises," Streep recalled.
Watch Streep, Martindale and Breslin discuss "August: Osage County" above. The film is out in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 27, before a nationwide rollout in January. More on "August: Osage County" can be found in HuffPost Entertainment's interviews with Wells and Letts.
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