Oscars Flashback '83: Pregnant Meryl Wins Actress

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It didn't take long for the world to fall in love with Meryl Streep, and the critics were no outliers. Three years after winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the loveable actress--then pregnant with her second child--took home the Best Actress award.

"She was here," she says when asked what she'll tell her daughter one day of that exciting night in 1983.

While Streep wasn't certain about her baby's gender, she reveals that she has already bought baby clothes for a girl. She lucked out, as the baby proved to be a girl, whom she named "Mamie" (current star of Emily Owens, M.D.) and unfortunately not "Oscar" like the press was hoping.


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The night's hallowed award was given to her for her performance in Sophie's Choice, a powerful story of a woman's perplexing journey through a convoluted life in the 1940s. The humble Streep had also received a Golden Globe that year for the film, which she was more excited for than herself.

"It's very exciting. It means that more people will go see the movie. That makes me happy 'cause I'm very, very proud of it," she says of receiving the award.

When asked if she still stands by her pre-show wishes to lose the award so she would still be considered an underdog in the film industry, Streep jovially shakes her head and giggles.


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She couldn't have hidden beneath the underdog tent for much longer regardless of the outcome of her nomination that night. Streep would go on to be nominated a total of fourteen times for the Best Actress award, which she took home once again on her most recent nomination for The Iron Lady.


Her reaction
to that award suggests that she would still prefer to be an underdog. Unfortunately, carrying the most Academy Awards nominations in history (17) won't allow that to happen.