The roles are wonderful now, I think, for women, and so many women are producing for themselves, marveled Meryl Streep at a Cannes Film Festival rendez-vous held on Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the legendary actress collected an honorary Palme dOr at the fests opening night ceremony. (She reported that she didnt go to sleep until 3 a.m.) Im so in awe of the ones who have done that Reese [Witherspoon] and Nicole [Kidman] and Natalie Portman. Everyone has their own production company! The mother of four and grandmother of five added with a chuckle, I had a production company: making babies! I didnt want to get calls after seven oclock at night, so I didnt do that. During a conversation with French journalist Didier Allouch in front of a packed Thtre Debussy within the Palais complex, the 74-year-old reflected on not just how opportunities for women have changed over the course of her nearly half-century screen career, but also on specific projects on her filmography (she said of the choice scene from Sophies Choice, It was upsetting, I dont like to think about it collaborators living (Steven Spielberg is a genius, Clint Eastwood never raised his voice well, once and Adam McKay an amazing filmmaker and so funny) and dead (Mike Nichols was a great director, of Carrie Fisher, I really miss her and how her one prior visit to Cannes, 35 years ago with the film A Cry in the Dark (for which she was awarded the fests best actress prize), was so different from this one.

When I came to Cannes the first time, they said, You will need nine bodyguards,' Streep recalled, noting that she had almost never used bodyguards before and doubted she would need nine until she got to town. I needed maybe a dozen! She recalled that the lack of security meant that wherever she went, paparazzi thrust cameras right in her face in a way that she had never experienced before. I almost didnt recover from that Thats what I remember about it, really. I was so afraid.

This time, though, security has been much tighter, and her experience has been much better. She said of the honorary Palme dOr presentation, which was presided over by French actress Juliette Binoche, I felt just a wave of feeling coming from the audience, and its so much bigger than I thought so many tiers of people, all the way up to the top. Yeah, it was a lot. I live a very quiet life, and really I dont get any respect at home, so its sort of amazing to come into this arena and have that big tidal wave. She also noted that she is a fan of the emcee: I did watch Camille Cottin in every single episode of [Call My Agent]!

Streep also admitted that she often got nervous ahead of her first day of working on a film (I used to say to my husband the night before, I dont know how to do this' the considerable number of roles she has played using an accent (If I had played women from central New Jersey all my life, I wouldnt be in this room. Im interested in people that are not like me. and being in hit movies: I wasnt aiming for a blockbuster ever, she insisted. The ones that ended up being blockbusters 2008sMamma Mia! and 2006s The Devil Wears Prada happened when I was 58 and 60, and I never thought they were going to be anything but fun. I didnt know they were going to be big, but I knew that I could get them made.

A charter member of the Times Up movement, she said of the organizations work, I think it did change things in not just Hollywood, but it had a filter around effect It has made a little correction in things and in places, Im sure, went overboard, and in other places, appropriately so, identified real abuse.

On a lighter note, she reflected on the famously sexy scene in 1985s Out of Africa in which Robert Redford shampoos her hair: Weve seen so many scenes of people fucking, but we dont see that loving touch, she said before cracking, I didnt want it to end, that way.