Academy Award winning actress Meryl Streep will become the first recipient of the Icon Award at the 25th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala Jan. 4 at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
The Icon Award honors a creative talent who, through the course of his or her career, has created a body of work which symbolizes the highest level of achievement in the motion picture art form.
The Gala will also present awards to previously announced honorees Sandra Bullock, Bruce Dern, Tom Hanks, Matthew McConaughey, Steve McQueen, Thomas Newman, Lupita Nyong’o, Julia Roberts and the cast of American Hustle.
The Festival runs Jan. 3-13, 2014.
“We’re overjoyed to recognize Meryl for yet another Oscar-worthy performance in August: Osage County,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “Meryl’s portrayal of Violet Weston, the matriarch of a dysfunctional family reunited by a tragic incident, will be remembered in her long list of iconic character roles."
August: Osage County tells the dark, hilarious and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them. Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name made its Broadway debut in December 2007 after premiering at Chicago’s legendary Steppenwolf Theatre. It continued with a successful international run and won five 2008 Tony Awards including Best Play.
For almost 40 years, Streep has portrayed an astonishing array of characters in a career that has cut its own unique path from the theater through film and television. She received her first Oscar nomination for The Deerhunter.
In 2011, in a record that is unsurpassed, she earned her 17th Academy Award nomination for her role as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. For this role, she won the Academy Award, British Academy Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Actress. She was most recently seen in Hope Springs, alongside Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Streep can currently be seen in August: Osage County and recently finished production on Disney’s Into the Woods and The Weinstein Company’s The Giver.
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