For someone as legendary as Meryl Streep, stepping onto a movie set is typically an experience filled with creative freedom. But there is one cult classic from 1992 that left her feeling more like a cog in a machine than an artist. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, ‘Death Becomes Her‘ earned widespread praise for its revolutionary achievements in visual effects.
But when it came to filming the dark comedy, the behind-the-scenes experience was so hard and tedious that Streep felt trapped and even famously compared it to “being at the dentist.” Several Decades later, the grueling production serves as a glaring reminder of why the project convinced Streep to stay away from effects-heavy films altogether.
Groundbreaking Visual Effects Made For A Grueling Experience
While ‘Death Becomes Her’ became one of the landmark visual effect movies, Meryl Streep admitted that it was much harder to film than it was to watch. In a 2007 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Streep said the project would be her only visual effects-driven film.
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The filming demands rarely allowed Streep to immerse herself in a scene, as she often had to act opposite props or stand-ins while the crew changed camera angles and adjusted visual effects. She joked that the actors in such cases felt “like a piece of machinery.”
Moreover, Streep recalled that each of her movements made the crew stop filming and redo everything to achieve the required visual effects. “You stand there like a piece of machinery—they should get machinery to do it. I loved how it turned out. But it’s not fun to act to a lampstand.”
“Death Becomes Her was my first, my last, my only [VFX-driven film]. I think it’s tedious. Whatever concentration you can apply to that kind of comedy is just shredded,” Streep said. Even though the final result impressed her, she loathed the process and decided not to pursue the VFX genre further.
Meryl Streep Saw It As A Satire On Hollywood’s Beauty Standards
While Meryl Streep found filming difficult, she did acknowledge the movie’s deeper message. Instead of limiting the project to a simple dark comedy, the actress considered it a biting satire of Hollywood’s obsession with youth, beauty, and aging.
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According to the actress, the competition between Streep’s Madeline Ashton and Goldie Hawn’s Helen Sharp reflected the intense pressure on women to preserve their appearance in a society that routinely values them for their youth and beauty.
Streep argued that women often try to meet such unreasonable beauty standards to gain power and acceptance. Despite the frustrating shooting schedule, she appreciated how director Robert Zemeckis dealt with technical challenges and delivered a message-driven movie that later achieved cult status.
Over the years, ‘Death Becomes Her’ has garnered a loyal fanbase, with people appreciating its scathing critique of vanity, aging, and unreasonable societal expectations on women.
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