Meryl Streep was 26 years old when she auditioned for the 1976 film King Kong and faced a incredibly blunt rejection by legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis.
De Laurentiis openly called her "ugly" in Italian to his team, assuming she wouldn't understand. Unbeknownst to the producer, Streep understood the language fluently and immediately fired back in Italian, calmly stating:
"I'm sorry I'm not as beautiful as I should be but, you know, this is it. This is what you get."
Rather than letting the cruel remark shatter her confidence, she used the rejection to fuel her resilience, maintaining that his harsh critique was merely one narrow opinion in a massive sea of creative voices.
Posted by Frosty_Jeweler911
25 Comments
[deleted]
Ok, but that FB caption sounds so fake. “Today I have 18 Academy Awards.”
I think that screenshot is fake.
The story is partially true but the quote is fake. Her only social media account is Instagram
I bet he was a gross ape who lived in his mom’s basement and never had a partner.
That write up sounds like those quotes on pictures of the joker, lmao. Can’t be real.
I remember her telling this story on the Graham Norton Show.
edit: https://youtu.be/GW0PMN6VAlg?is=IcrBGLH6VePV6Sb5
“a producer”
Whoever came up with this omitting that it’s a story about Dino being Dino.
OP has to be an AI bot.
Am I going crazy or was this just posted like one or two months ago? Maybe even less. I keep seeing this story.
A massive part of the outrage and the reason this post goes viral everytime is because she’s quite obviously a conventionally attractive woman. Everyone is shocked and horrified because his comment is so false.
She has benefited from her conventional beauty for her entire life and career. She wouldn’t have gotten the roles she got her in her youth if she wasn’t white, blonde, tall, and pretty. She’s one of the greatest of all time but what are we even talking about?
I would knock the dust off
Copy and pasting my comment from the last time this spammy-ass account posted this:
[This was debunked years ago idk how it’s still floating around](https://www.thejournal.ie/fake-photo-of-meryl-streep-rejected-from-king-kong-5691240-Mar2022/)
> However the accompanying photo is not of the Sophie’s Choice actress heading home from the ill-fated audition. That photo was taken by photographer Ted Thai in 1981 – 6 years after the King Kong tryout in 1975.
> It is not ‘me on my way home’ as the post claimed. By the time this photo was taken, Streep had already won an Oscar for her role in Kramer vs Kramer.
> Also, she did not win 18 Academy Awards as the post claims. To date she has been nominated 21 times but has only won three.
Another debunking [here](https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/photo-does-not-show-meryl-streep-riding-the-new-york-city-subway-after-being-rej-idUSL2N2VS1SJ/) and [here](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/meryl-streep-subway-audition/)
Fuck that guy!!!
Somebody posted a pic of her and Future side by side, and my life ain’t been the same since
Also she’s the 🐐
that bootstraps line 🫠
She’s told this story for decades now. She tells it in almost every interview. She used to be kind of charming and quick witted, but everything gets stale with repetition. This is our cue to act shocked, laugh, be outraged and tell her how beautiful she was. And then Meryl will say something “charming” and self deprecating. She’s quite thin skinned to be honest. Because her film resumé is not that great and she deservedly receives criticism for some of her performances and choices. No one stays on top forever. Get over the Dino De Laurentis comment Meryl.
I’m sure that Sigourney, Susan, Sally, Sissy, Jessica, Julianne, Diane and Jane have all experienced worse.
Gosh this hurts my brain.
HER, UGLY???
This is like the opposite of the running “her?” gag in Arrested Development.
Beauty is sooo subjective, all I see is an insanely beautiful woman when I look at her esp after she entered her late 40s.
EIGHTEEN Academy Awards? Come on.
Meryl Streep has been nominated 21 times and has won 3 Oscars. That’s a pretty significant difference.
If you genuinely thought this screenshot was real, it’s a good reminder of why media literacy matters. Didn’t “18 Academy Awards” sound even just a little off? That’s the kind of claim that should make someone stop and fact-check before sharing it. For perspective, Walt Disney holds the record for the most Academy Awards, with 22. If Meryl Streep had 18 Oscars, that would be one of the most famous facts about her career.
The story itself is wrong, too. She was indeed called ugly by the director of King Kong in Italian, and she did respond in Italian. But she did not say what’s quoted in this meme. On top of that, the photo being used was taken years later, after she’d already won an Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer.
It’s just a completely fabricated caption.
I really wish people would stop believing everything they see online and start applying a little critical thinking, especially when something sounds THIS exaggerated.
Technically she didn’t prove him wrong about that, she just showed that she could act.
This is such a Facebook post
This post is garbage
Um is that her actual Facebook page?
Crazy anyone looked at her and thought she wasn’t pretty!
The idea of a (at least half fake) Facebook post being posted here is making me laugh
Source: [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/01/meryl-streep-called-too-ugly-jessica-lange-role](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/01/meryl-streep-called-too-ugly-jessica-lange-role)