The triple Oscar-winner portrays the real-life title character, a World War Two-era New York socialite whose passion for music far outweighed her singing skills.
“Yeah, she aimed high,” said Streep, who had voice lessons while a teenager.
“She picked the most difficult arias in the coloratura canon, absolutely. And she screwed it up every time, but she knew them. She knew how they should be done and she really did try her very best. I discovered when listening to her recordings that it wasn't how bad it was, it was how close it came to being almost good and that’s what made you want as an audience to root for her and then be disappointed.”
The movie, opening in US movie theaters on Friday, follows Jenkins around 1944 as, at age 76, she prepares for her first big public performance at a sold-out Carnegie Hall.
Weak from a nearly half-decade battle with syphilis, Jenkins is determined to deliver her best at the concert, but is blindly unaware that people's interest in her is due to her lack of skill. Her philandering husband, played by Hugh Grant, has been hiding the truth from her, allowing his wife to think she is an operatic wonder.
“In all the characters I’ve played, I don’t think, except maybe for (American chef) Julia Child, I’ve ever played anybody with so much joie de vivre... She just soldiered on in spite of it all and that was very touching to me,” Streep said.
