Meryl Streep Plays Peggy Noonan?

Posted Saturday, July 24, 2004 12:00 am

By: E & P Staff So who is Meryl Streep really playing in the upcoming political thriller "The Manchurian Candidate?" Columnist Peggy Noonan may need to look in the mirror.

In her Thursday column for The Wall Street Journal, Noonan, the former Reagan speech writer, ventured a guess. Streep in the movie plays an ambitious conservative politician who appears to be the villain. Noonan wrote, "People think the evil woman Meryl Streep plays...is Hillary (Clinton)."

But it appears the "evil woman" is part Peggy Noonan. In an interview in The New York Times, to be published Sunday, Streep reveals that she based the character on former Bush adviser Karen Hughes, Ann Coulter, Elizabeth Dole, and, yes, Peggy Noonan. The article says Streep "studied tapes to nail their mannerisms and attitudes."

Streep says she was fascinated by a "woman in power and how she's regarded...Their certainty. Unshakable. Ann Coulter!"

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Meryl Streep Plays Peggy Noonan?

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