Watching Stephen Colbert administer his Proustian “Colbert Questionert” to Meryl Streep is like watching a beautiful and lyrical fencing match between two, uh, fencers at the height of their… fencing skills. Colbert fires questions designed to reveal the deepest and truest self in his subject, and Streep treats each answer as a performance. “Favorite sandwich?” Pastrami, and oh, how she lights up when she says that. “Scariest animal?” Allow Meryl Streep to teach you about the nest of the black widow spider, which “looks like a coronavirus, but is white”. She still has an immediate answer to what she thinks happens when we die, which is a combination of getting together with our loved ones and returning to Earth to haunt people in a pleasant way. But Meryl is comically and theatrically silent when Colbert asks what his favorite action movie is. Streep’s eyes widen, she tilts her head to the side and her face contorts from a thoughtful face to a malicious smile, saying, “There you are confusing me.” Colbert made Streep admit only through facial gestures that she is not a big fan of action. Which is a shame, because we consider it a stage job in Ricki and the Flash one of the best physical action performances out there.
