Meryl Streep has three Oscars and is considered the best of all American actresses. But she was bulled in school. She talked about it on Monday night after she was introduced by actress Regency Boies at the Weinstein Company screeening of “Bully” at the Paley Center in New York. The screening was part of the campaign to get the MPAA to change the “Bully” rating from R to PG-13 before the film opens next Friday in New York and Los Angeles. Here’s what she said:

“I watched this with my four college roommates. We get together every year. A child psychologist, a woman who’s a lawyer, a columnist, and a businesswoman–we were all stunned. It brought me back to New Jersey in nineteen fifty…–a long time ago. I was eight year old and up a tree. And my nemesis, this one bully, was hitting my legs with a stick until they bled. It was very ‘Lord of the Flies’

. It was a very nice Republican community, I might add. [Ed note—Meryl said this a with a smile, knowing a lot of the audience were bankers from similar towns. The remark got laughs.] Seeing this, you realize it’s been around, bullying. But I hope this film will give encouragement to the kids who are being bullied. My dad had a little statue on his desk of three little monkeys, a carved Chinese statuette– doing this, this and this. [She demonstrated See No Evil, Say No Evil, Hear No Evil]. I thought maybe this will encourage all those little monkeys to stand up and open their eyes and take the earbuds out of their ears and say something. Because a team is stronger than a bully. I hope you really like it, and tell absolutely everybody at the MPAA that it should have a rating of PG-13.”

Last weekend, following the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center, Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep had a private dinner at Streep’s Tribeca apartment. They could have talked about any number of things: where to buy a good pantsuit, for instance. (Clinton joked onstage earlier that evening she was glad Streep didn’t make a movie called “The Devil Wears Pantsuits.”) Or what it’s like to be women of a certain age straight up running the game. Or, after Streep’s turn as Margaret Thatcher, perhaps they were talking about biopic options. Maybe they were just watching some recorded Real Housewives together.
Or a modest proposal: maybe they were plotting. We’re sick of reading about how maybe Obama’s going to pull a switcheroo and have Hillary run as his vice-president in the upcoming election, and perhaps Clinton is too. Hillary, we know, not so secretly wants the top of the ticket.

Why wait until 2016? Neither Republicans nor Democrats are wild about their options in the upcoming election; it’s the perfect chance for a third-party candidate, if the right one were to emerge. And while Hillary Clinton might not have much appeal outside the Democratic base, there is not a man, woman, or child alive in America today who doesn’t like — love! — Meryl Streep. Pick Vice-President Streep for the fast track to the presidency! Why not?
Foreign diplomats would swoon — she’d be able to conduct official business in whatever accent they wanted. Babies wouldn’t know what hit them. It’s genius. There have been crazier running mate selections, after all.

-Noreen Malone for New York Magazine

“Yesterday’s big news: Meryl Streep and artist husband Don Gummer donated $20,000 to two schools, and fellow actor Viola Davis has been involved. It sounded very nice, and it was done before the Oscars. But a closer look reveals that the Gummers have quietly been giving away millions for the last several years without any fanfare. Their Silver Mountain Arts Foundation has donated close to $2 million to Vassar College alone in the last three years.

“According to the foundation’s tax filing, Silver Mountain pays no salaries. It just gives and gives- to arts projects, health organizations, etc. The donations are in a range from $1000 to $1 million. It’s quite extraordinary and it’s been going on for years. The Gummers are annual donors to the Opus School in Harlem, the setting of Meryl’s Oscar nominated performance in “Music of the Heart.”

“In 2010 alone, they gave away $2.13 million–about half of it to Vassar, but $100,000 to Oxfam America, and another $5,000 apiece to things like New York’s City Meals on Wheels and Coalition for the Homeless. They’re very giving to local charities in their Connecticut neighborhoods, and support museums in Boston and Illinois. Last year they even gave $200,000 to the National Women’s Museum in Alexandria, Virginia.

“Charity and largesse are not the reasons you get awards, however. I’ve read some weird stories in the last 48 hour about how “shocking” it was that Streep won the Best Actress Oscar on Sunday night for “The Iron Lady.” The fact is that Viola Davis gave a beautiful performance in “The Help.” She is now one of our top actresses. But nowhere in “The Help” are there the quantifying moments like Streep has over and over again in “The Iron Lady.” Even if you don’t like the conceit of the film–using Margaret Thatcher’s senility to frame her recollections–nothing can be taken away from Streep’s superior performance. She doesn’t do impersonations. The reason she’s called our finest actress is because she creates a character from scratch. In “The Devil Wears Prada” she wasn’t Anna Wintour; she was her own sensational act of will. The same thing can be said in her landmark work like “Doubt” and “Sophie’s Choice.” She subsumes. It’s remarkable.

“Americans don’t have much investment in Margaret Thatcher. We don’t have an emotional attachment to her. Many people loathe her for her politics. The trick was to make Thatcher sympathetic enough to follow her through her key moments as Prime Minister and understand her as a human. When I first saw the movie I wrote on Showbiz411 that it was impossible to evaluate the actress. She was acting at an incandescent level. I felt bad that Jim Broadbent was overlooked; he was so fine. But Streep is a tour de force. This is no put down of Viola Davis, or Michelle Williams, Glenn Close, Berenice Bejo, Rooney Mara, or any of the other nominated actresses. Remember when an actress was needed for one scene in “Doubt” to go up against Streep, John Patrick Shanley sent in Viola Davis. We’re playing in the major leagues here. But there was no trickery in getting Streep the Oscar. When the full Academy voted, they were sending a referendum–how lucky we are to have Meryl Streep for her passion and consistency. And then on top of that, the quiet charitable work. Amazing.”

Simon & Schuster has acquired a novel called The Meryl Streep Movie Club, in which four women at pivotal moments in their lives are brought together by their love of the Oscar-winner’s films.
The book, by Mia March, is in the spirit of The Friday Night Knitting Club and The Jane Austen Book Club and the deal for UK and Commonwealth rights was struck with Kate McLennan at Abner Stein representing Alexis Hurley at Inkwell Management.

Max Hitchcock, fiction editorial director at Simon & Schuster, said: “Hot on the heels of Sunday’s Oscars, I’m thrilled to announce a highly topical acquisition, The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March. It’s a heartwarming tale uniting the generations with Meryl in one of her best roles yet—that of a fairy godmother.”

The book will be published as a paperback original this summer.

Meryl Streep and her husband, Don Gummer, are charitable folks.

Like, really, really charitable — donating millions quietly over the years.

Streep and Gummer donated $20,000 to two schools recently, but it also came to light that they’ve given away millions over the years, almost secretly.

Well, not that they were trying to keep it a secret, they just weren’t shouting their philanthropy from the rooftops.

Streep and her husband donated almost $2 million to Vassar College in the last three years through their Silver Mountain Arts Foundation.

The foundation gives to the arts, as well as health organizations, with donations ranging between $1,000 and $1 million.

They also donate annually to the Opus School in Harlem, which was the school in Streep’s “Music of the Heart.”

In 2010, they donated $2.13 million to Vassar, Oxfam America, New York’s City Meals on Wheels and Coalition for the Homeless.

They also give to local charities in Connecticut, support Boston and Illinois museums and gave $200,000 to the National Women’s Museum in Alexandria, Virginia.