All in good fun! James Corden roasted Meryl Streep with a few playful jokes at the 19th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards at L.A.’s Beverly Hilton Hotel on Tuesday, February 21.
The comedian, 38, presented his Into the Woods costar with the Distinguished Collaborator Award, and he couldn’t help but jokingly paint her as a diva. “It’s time that someone said it, she’s a complete bitch,” he joked. “She is the worst.”
Corden recounted the first time he met the acting legend before they worked together on the 2014 film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical. “We were in London and Meryl was having a bite to eat with Christine Baranski, and I walked over to the table, and I said, ‘Hello, I’m James.’ She looked me right in the eye — and I’ll never ever forget it, she said to me, ‘I’d like the lemon-encrusted salmon,’” he said. “I explained to Meryl that I was an actor and I was actually about to play the Baker in Into the Woods alongside her and she said, ‘That’s great. I’d like the lemon-encrusted salmon with a Diet Coke.’”
The Late Late Show host also poked fun at President Donald Trump’s tweet that Streep, 67, is “overrated” after she gave a searing political speech and insinuated that the POTUS is a bully at the 2017 Golden Globes in January. “Now listen, I disagree with almost everything that Donald Trump has ever said, but when he tweeted … yeah, I’m joking, of course,” he said. “It’s great to see someone like Meryl finally be recognized with an award. That’s what I think. I mean, what is she even going to do with this? This is going to be a door stop for her Golden Globes room.”
Finally getting serious, Corden expressed that he truly admires the Florence Foster Jenkins actress. “There is nobody else like her. To be truly unique in this world is almost impossible. There is no one like her, there never will be and there never has been,” he said. “For everyone in this room, how lucky we are to be in her orbit but a moment.”
Streep later took the stage to accept the award and dedicated it to her mother, who always wanted to be a costume designer. “Halloween was maybe like a religious — no, it was like the run-up to Fashion Week in our house,” she said. “She was so inventive.”
