Cannes 2024: Meryl Streep overwhelmed as she gets thunderous standing ovation

Hollywood actor Meryl Streep was overwhelmed as she received a two-minute-long standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14. She accepted her honourary Palme d'Or at the film festival. A video shows the actor pretending to walk off the stage, but she returned and danced to the applause. Speaking at the event, she said that she thought her career was over when she turned 40. French actor Juliette Binosh presented the award to her.

While handing out the award, Binoche became emotional and said, "When I see you on the screen, I don't see you...Where does it come from? Were you born like this? I don't know, but there's a believer in you; a believer that allows me to believe."

Clling Streep an 'international treasure', Binoche said, "You changed the way we look at cinema."

Streep, while addressing the gathering, thanked Cannes for inviting her back after 35 years. She last appeared at the festival for 1989's 'Evil Angels'.

She said that watching clips of her career was like "looking out the window of a bullet train, watching my youth fly into my middle age, right onto where I am standing on this stage tonight. So many faces and so many places that I remember.”

Streep recalled that she was about to turn 40 and a mother of three when she attended Cannes last time. "I thought that my career was over," she said.

She then continued, "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," as she pointed at jury president Greta Gerwig.

For the unaware, Streep and Gerwig worked on 'Little Women' in 2019. "And, incidentally, that was my daughter she was beating up in ‘Frances Ha’ in the first clip. I’ll speak to you about that later," she said.

Meryl Streep concluded her speech by saying that she is "just so grateful that you haven’t gotten sick of my face and you haven’t gotten off the train.”

She then added, "My mother, who is usually right about everything, said to me: ‘Meryl, my darling, you’ll see. It all goes so fast. So fast.’ And it has, and it does. Except for my speech, which is too long."

The Tuesday night event of Cannes 2024 was Streep-themed. It had music from 'Mamma Mia', Streep's rendition of 'The Winner Takes it all' and 'Dancing Queen' played when she accepted the prestigious Palme d'Or.

Meryl Streep, in her almost five-decade-long career, won three Oscar awards and 21 nominations.