Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour’s connection goes beyond The Devil Wears Prada.
During her appearance on the Thursday, April 30, episode of Jenna Bush Hager’s “Open Book” podcast, Streep, 76, reacted to the news that she and the former Vogue editor-in-chief have a surprising family relation.
“It came out that… y’all are, like, fifth cousins or something,” Bush Hager, 44, told the Only Murders in the Building star. “Sixth cousins.”
Explaining their connection, Streep responded, “Bucks County, Pennsylvania. We are old English, the Wilkinsons, my mother’s side. It’s pretty funny.”
Today was first to report on the news of Streep and Wintour’s family connection earlier this month, citing Ancestry.com.
“The genealogy company has confirmed that Streep and Wintour share fifth great-grandparents, Thomas Smith and Elizabeth Kinsey, making them sixth cousins,” the report read.
Streep’s Devil Wears Prada costars Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt were shocked by the revelation, with Blunt, 43, telling Streep in disbelief, “No, you’re not. That’s fantastic.”
For the uninitiated, the 2006 comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada was based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the book based on her experience working as Wintour’s personal assistant at Vogue. Streep played the notoriously harsh Runway magazine editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly. She’ll reprise her role in the upcoming Devil Wears Prada sequel.
Though it was widely believed at the time of the film’s release that the character of Miranda was meant to be a direct impersonation of Wintour, 76, Streep explained on the podcast that she “didn’t want Miranda to be modeled on Anna.”
“I didn’t know her at all,” she continued. “The only bosses I’d had were men, so I copied their leadership style, not hers.”
Streep added that as she “got to know” Wintour, she realized the media executive is “pretty fabulous.”
“And what she has done, she’s exactly my age, at 76, she’s running all of Conde Nast content around the world,” she said. “And that’s the New Yorker, that’s the Traveler, that’s GQ, I think, and everything else. Yeah, amazing. And all of the Vogues all over the world.”
Streep joked that, had she known Wintour was related to her, she might have “copied her” in the film after all.
“Isn’t that wild? Maybe she’s copying me,” she quipped.
Streep also dished on how she managed to get Wintour to pose alongside her on the cover of Vogue for the first time.
“Well, it was easy for me to say no,” the Mamma Mia star explained, referring to their recent photo shoot. “I love saying no. And she said, ‘Do you want to be on the cover of Vogue?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it if you do it.’ And she said, ‘Oh, well, no.’”
Streep added that she and Wintour discussed the concept further and decided, “‘Yeah, let’s screw around with this idea.’ And it was fun. She’s such a good sport.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 premieres in theaters on Friday, May 1.
