The “Florence Foster Jenkins” actress also explained why filming the 1992 dark comedy was sometimes “excruciating.”

Meryl Streep explains why she ‘had a beef’ with her Death Becomes Her costar Goldie Hawn

The "Florence Foster Jenkins" actress also explained why filming the 1992 dark comedy was sometimes "excruciating."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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April 30, 2026 8:13 p.m. ET

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Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in 'Death Becomes Her'. Credit:

Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

- Meryl Streep said she "had a beef" with Goldie Hawn on the set of *Death Becomes Her*.

- However, the actress clarified that she "loved" her former costar: "She's one of my buddies."

- Streep said that accommodating the film's complex visual effects was "excruciating."

Meryl Streep has mixed feelings about her time working on *Death Becomes Her*.

The *Mamma Mia* star reflected on collaborating with Goldie Hawn on the 1992 dark comedy, noting one particular habit that drove her crazy.

"Goldie, she was always late to set," Streep said in an interview with *Vanity Fair*. "But she was so adorable. And I'm always on time, you know, and annoying. But she's late, and she had a red convertible, I remember, and she'd drive herself to set. So that was probably the problem."

Streep continued, "She'd drive herself to set. She had her hair all…'Oh gosh, sorry!' And everybody thought, 'Oh, she's so cute.' Yeah. So I had a beef with her."

Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in New York City on April 12, 2011.

Kevin Mazur/WireImage

The *Devil Wears Prada *actress clarified that she feels affectionately toward Hawn despite her past tardiness. "I loved her. I love her," she said. "She's one of my buddies, and over the years, we've had some laughs about that movie because people love it. I thought it was like a documentary on Beverly Hills."

The film follows a bloody rivalry between actress Madeline (Streep) and her former friend Helen (Hawn) as they feud over the plastic surgeon they both love (Bruce Willis). Both women eventually use a magic potion that brings them eternal life as they strive to recapture the beauty of their younger selves, which leads to several incidents where they *should* die, but instead remain alive with comically contorted bodies rendered with pioneering visual effects.

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Streep didn't enjoy the technical challenges of the film. "I remember being in a green spandex suit that encompassed my whole body, and then little pins being stuck in it. And they measured something," she said before lamenting a scene where her character is decapitated. "So I wasn't in my costume, and then they, for part of this, when they take your head off, I'm not sure how they do it, but it's not like playing in a scene that Arthur Miller wrote, or anything."

She continued, "It's a completely different animal. Tedious is kind of a little word for what it is. It's excruciating."

Meryl Streep in London on April 22, 2026.

Tristan Fewings/Getty

However, Streep said that playing her scenes with Hawn was the highlight of the entire production. "When we get to the scene and we just do the scene all silly and fabulous, me with Goldie, we just laughed," she said. "We just had a lot of fun. And she's the best laugher in America, really. She laughs like, 'Ahahaha!' And then they have to stop shooting. But that part was fun. But the VFX, what do they call it? That part was not that fun."

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Streep also said that despite a somewhat questionable rep, Willis was extremely pleasant to work with.

"Oh, Bruce was divine," she said. " I guess he was a bad boy on certain sets, and came with a little reputation for being difficult, but we had so much fun with him. He was such a gent, and so game, and willing to be ridiculous. I just thought he was wonderful."

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