Meryl Streep was ‘so in love’ with 80s co-star after five takes of ‘sex scene’-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro

Acting icon Meryl Streep has fondly recalled her time making 1985’s Out of Africa with Robert Redford (Picture: Hemdale/Getty Images)

Hollywood legend Meryl Streep has opened up more about working with co-star Robert Redford on their classic film, 1985’s Out of Africa – including how her feelings for him developed.

The pair lit up the screen together as Danish writer Karen Blixen and big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton in the movie, which was one of Streep’s biggest commercial hits of her career at the time.

She previously confessed upon the film’s release that she ‘developed this huge crush’ on the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star, who is 13 years her senior, joking now that she was ‘so in love’ with him after they wrapped shooting.

In Out of Africa, Redford shampoos and washes Streep’s hair for her in the river in a famously sensual scene, which Streep has dubbed ‘a sex scene in a way’ due to its intimate nature.

This was despite the fact the pair also had to contend with a territorial hippo or two while shooting the sequence.

Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, after being awarded a prestigious honorary Palme d’Or, 74-year-old Streep recalled they had been told ‘to be aware of’ two dangerous things while filming the scene.

Streep and Redford played lovers in the movie (Picture: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

The star spoke about the film’s famous shampooing scene (Picture: ABACA/Shutterstock)

‘We had lions, but they were imported from California and they were supposedly fine – tame. They were not,’ she told the audience, including Metro.co.uk.

‘And the second thing we were told is the animal that kills the most people in Africa is the hippopotamus, if you get between the hippopotamus and the water.

‘So we were shooting in the river and the hippopotamus were right above it. I don’t know if they show that in the movie, I can’t remember, but I was aware of it! And Redford was washing my hair like this,’ she recalled, miming half-hearted, small movements.

‘It wasn’t good,’ she added.

Streep joked she was ‘so in love’ after five takes of having her hair washed, which she compared to a sex scene (Picture: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

However, Streep’s longtime hair and makeup artist and friend, J. Roy Helland, stepped in to save the day – creating cinema magic with a passionate yet nudity-free intimate scene thanks to the tip he gave Redford.

‘Roy comes up, my hair and make-up man, and he says, “Bob, Bob, go like this”,’ explained The Devil Wears Prada actress, demonstrating a much more vigorous and slow massaging-type movement, with Streep calling it ‘the best part of my day’ when Helland would wash her hair for her.

The Oscar winner continued: ‘Redford took the lesson, and he just really got into it, and he was great. By take five I was so in love!’

Pointing to the sexual undercurrent, Streep shared: ‘I mean, it’s such a tender scene. It’s a sex scene in a way because it’s so intimate.

‘And we’ve seen so many scenes of people f**king but we don’t see that loving touch, that care, you know? It’s gorgeous. I didn’t want it to end that day, even in spite of the hippos.’

Out of Africa was one of Streep’s biggest hits of her career at the time (Picture: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Redford has previously said that he probably got along ‘too well’ with Streep while making Out of Africa, which caused issues with director Sydney Pollack.

‘It caused ripples,’ the Indecent Proposal star admitted in 2019 book Queen Meryl.

‘We liked to talk. We’d be off-camera, between takes, taking it easy. We had a sense of humour in common. But Sydney didn’t like that. He would break it up.’

Redford added: ‘It bothered him that I was connecting with her in some way that didn’t fit his picture of me, or of us as a team.

‘That wasn’t easy to deal with, because I felt I was in a vice, and I became resentful.’

The pair teamed up again onscreen over 20 years later for 2007’s Lions for Lambs, which Redford also directed.

She and Redford, who spoke of their ‘ripples’ on set previously, reunited for Lions for Lambs (Picture: Jason Merritt/FilmMagic)

The actress was speaking at Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday (Picture: ABACA/Shutterstock)

Streep boasts a record 21 Academy Award nominations across her career, first receiving a nod for The Deer Hunter in 1979 before winning the following year for Kramer vs. Kramer.

She was last nominated in 2018 for best actress for The Post.

Elsewhere in the talk, Streep revealed she had no idea that two of her most recent hits – The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia! – would end up as big as they did.

‘I just would fall in love with stories and it didn’t matter… I wasn’t aiming for a blockbuster ever, really. And so the ones that ended up being blockbusters, The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia!, I was 58 and 60 years old when those came out and I never thought they were going to be anything except fun!’

The Devil Wears Prada was not expected to be a blockbuster hit by Streep at 58 (Picture: Barry Wetcher/Twentieth Century Fox)

On Tuesday night, Streep was emotional as she received her Palme d’Or from Juliette Binoche, giving a heartfelt and seemingly off-the-cuff acceptance speech.

In it, she also poked fun at her and American people’s reluctance to pronounce Cannes correctly.

‘I am so grateful to receive this honour and from this great artist and from you all because Cannes – Cannes, Cannes!’ she scolded herself, having initially said it with a long ‘a’.

 ‘Okay, Americans we say ‘Cannes’. We think it’s fancy to say ‘Cannes’ but it’s wrong.’

She was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or at the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday (Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

The screen icon last attended the Cannes Film Festival in 1989 with Evil Angels, and said that 35 years ago, she feared her career was ending.

‘I was already a mother of three, I was about to turn 40 and I thought that my career was over.

‘That was not an unrealistic expectation for actresses at that time. And the only reason that I’m here tonight and that it continued is because of the very gifted artists with whom I’ve worked, including Madame La President,’ she added, referring to jury president and Barbie filmmaker Greta Gerwig, who directed her in 2019’s adaptation of Little Women.

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