Meryl Streep already proved she was fire when she used her lifetime achievement award speech at the Golden Globes to call out Donald Trump. Now, she’s adding to that inspiring moment with more words of wisdom.
Streep accepted the National Ally for Equality Award on Saturday at the Human Rights Campaign’s 2017 New York Gala. In her emotionally charged speech, she took aim at anyone threatening to disrupt the progress women, people of color and the LGBTQ community have achieved over the last century.
“We should not be surprised that fundamentalists, of every stripe, are exercised and fuming,” she said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “We should not be surprised that these profound changes come at a steeper cost than we originally thought. We should not be surprised that not everyone is actually cool with it.”
But Streep isn’t prepared to give up quietly, even if her first instinct isn’t to stand up and fight. “I want to read and garden and load the dishwasher,” Streep said. “It’s embarrassing and terrifying to put the target on your forehead…And it sets you up for troll attacks and armies of brownshirt bots and worse, and the only way you can do it is if you feel you have to. You have to. You have no choice, but you have to speak up and stand up and act up.”
Streep even took a moment to address Trump calling her "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood" following her Globes speech. "Yes, I am the most overrated, overdecorated and, currently, over-berated actress...of my generation," she said. "But that is why you invited me here! Right?"
She ended with an empowering call to action. "We have the right to live our lives, with God or without, as we choose,” she said. “There is a prohibition against the establishment of a state religion in our Constitution, and we have the right to choose with whom we live, whom we love and who and what gets to interfere with our bodies. As Americans, men, women, people, gay, straight, L, B, G, T, Q, all of us have the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And if you think people got mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait till they come and try to take away our happiness!"
Mic drop, anyone?
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