WITH three Academy Awards (2012’s The Iron Lady, 1983’s Sophie’s Choice, 1980’s Kramer vs. Kramer) and 19 Oscar nominations—the most for any actor, male or female—Meryl Streep takes on a whole new gig (as a hard-rocking singer/guitarist) for Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody in Ricki and the Flash. In an original film loaded with live musical performances, Streep stars as Ricki Rendazzo, a guitar heroine who made a world of mistakes as she followed her dreams of rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Returning home, Ricki gets a shot at redemption and a chance to make things right as she faces the music with her family. Streep stars opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer; Rick Springfield, portraying a Flash member in love with Ricki; Kevin Kline as Ricki’s ex-husband; and Audra McDonald as Kline’s new wife.
Ricki and the Flash will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas nationwide starting September 9.
It is interesting that the Ricki character is not that successful as a rock star.
Absolutely. There is more forgiveness in the fact that my character is supposed to be mediocre.
I was immediately enamored with the script for this movie. I sat in a chair and it made me laugh. It was very “felt” and moving and sort of bumpy. It felt honest and it was funny.
Did you ever harbor rock-star dreams when you were younger?
I never harbored rock dreams when I was younger. When I was in high school I sang with a band a couple of times, at these sort of country farmers granges, but I had no illusions. We played Motown and went down well with the audience—all 13 of them! So I had a little of Ricki’s experience there in that area.
You’ve worked with director Jonathan Demme before, on The Manchurian Candidate.
We worked together on that over 10 years ago and that was a very different experience. It was a remake of a famous film, and it was extremely stylized. My character was fairly straightforward, as a villain, and you’re not interested in all the character’s different dimensions. It’s sort of flat-out Iago evil. But this film had more layers and was a lot more fun to approach. It was our own to invent. It wasn’t coming from any other material.
And Jonathan has a rich connection to music. His Talking Heads film, Stop Making Sense, is seminal.
He’s done amazing things with Neil Young and with Talking Heads; that’s a terrific movie. He really gets it. That’s his wheelhouse; he loves the music and so do I. I love music. Rick Springfield was maybe the biggest gift that this movie had, and all the guys in the band, Rick Rosas [the bass player] and our drummer, Joe Vitale. I had heard of Bernie Worrell [the keyboard player]. I knew Rick, of course. Sadly, Rick Rosas passed away after we made this film, and we’ve dedicated it to him. He was particularly generous to me.
He had played with Neil Young for 30 years and came off Neil’s tour straight into our rehearsals. And I started from zero. I didn’t know anything about anything. We had two weeks to rehearse as a band, and that’s no time at all, even if you can play the guitar!
Were Rick and the backing band very patient with you?
Oh yeah. I was really at their feet. I was just in love with these guys. I’m sure it was really annoying because I kept apologizing, which is very annoying, but they were very patient. Then there was a moment about a week in when we started sounding like a band. It is like people say with golf—you hit a good shot and then you are in it forever.
Could you play the guitar at all beforehand?
I knew a D chord in college, D, G, E and A. That’s all you need. No, I had to learn bar chords—that’s the real thing—and the blues, all that stuff. We were playing Edgar Winter and really great stuff. I love Bruce Springsteen. We were so lucky to get that song. Bruce doesn’t let stuff go that often, so it was fantastic that he let us have it.
Stepping away from the music, it must have been great to work with Kevin Kline again, and with your daughter, Mamie?
Kevin is wonderful and a really, really great actor. I’ve known him for so many years and we’ve done a lot together in theater and in film. Have you seen him onstage? He is pretty great. Kevin is a very talented musician himself and I love working with him. He did come up to me on the first day when we were playing in the club, and he said, “You don’t sound bad.” I thought, “Thank you.” That was the highest compliment. He meant that we sounded good. At least, that’s how I took it—as a compliment! And, yes, I got to work with my daughter, Mamie, as well and that was joyful. I loved doing my scenes with her and I think she’s terrific.
Who chose the music for the movie?
I brought the Bruce Springsteen track. They were looking for something anthemic for that last wedding song. They were looking for original music. Jonathan went to a lot of songwriters but there was nothing. Then I heard this song coming down to work one day on the Bruce Springsteen Channel! We have that on satellite radio—a channel dedicated to Bruce—and when I heard this song I thought it sounded like our story. It was our narrative. I played it for Jonathan and there we were. Getting it was tough, though, because Bruce doesn’t let that much of his music go.
What about the rest of the music?
For the music we tried to find things that cover bands would play. We went to some cool venues in the San Fernando Valley and listened to some live bands. Those bands played what the folks want. The people in those places are such an interesting mix. You have some 70-year-olds, and then some hipsters who are there ironically, and everyone is dancing. Everyone is having a great time and the music is real rock ‘n’ roll, which has kind of gone away now that everything has become mainstream. It’s nice to hear the early stuff again and then to play it.
How much guitar training did you have before you started rehearsing?
I played for three months. To begin with I started learning on an acoustic guitar with a teacher in New York, Larry Saltzman, and then moved to the electric guitar about a month in after four lessons. Then I worked pretty much every day with Neil Citron, who is this genius guitar teacher, a session player out of LA. He runs his own music production company. He knows everybody. He is one of those Laurel Canyon guys from back in the day. He taught me a lot of little tricks that rock ‘n’ rollers use, quick changes and stuff like that.
Did you find the electric guitar easier with the thinner neck?
The electric is easier to press the chord down, but your mistakes are much louder. With an acoustic, you get away with it. With an electric, you have to be really committed to that bad note because it’s ringing through the hall! It was such a lot of fun. I had never held one before and I loved it. I fell in love with the idea of playing a Rickenbacker because I loved John Lennon. I wanted to play that, but it was too boomy for a rhythm guitar. Then I tried a Stratocaster and settled on the Telecaster 1968 Blues. I love this guitar.
Have you kept it?
I’ve kept it but haven’t been playing it because I’ve been making a movie about opera. It occurred to me that they may, well, ask if I can play something to promote Ricki and the Flash but I haven’t played the electric guitar now in seven months because, as I say, I’m doing this film about Florence Foster Jenkins. If you don’t play every day, you can’t just pick up the instrument again and play like you could.
It must be interesting doing the opera movie and trying a different type of singing?
Oh, it is. Florence Foster Jenkins is fascinating. I wish I knew who gave this quote about a true artist being the amateur who does it not for fame or money but just for the love of doing it. That’s what Florence was, a true amateur. She was a very generous philanthropist to musical institutions in New York City and she gave lots and lots of money away to support them. And like many people who support the arts, she harbored a secret dream of doing it.