Meryl Streep Enjoyed ‘Sex Scene’ With Robert Redford So Much She ‘Didn’t Want It To End’
Meryl Streep looked back at her notable career as an actress and got candid about an "intimate" scene she did with Robert Redford.
The 74-year-old actress reflected on her career at the Cannes Film Festival at Théâtre Debussy on Wednesday, saying she considers the shampoo scene from the 1985 film "Out of Africa" with Redford as one of her most iconic on-screen moments, according to Variety.
"I mean it's such a tender scene. It's a sex scene in a way because it's so intimate. We've seen so many scenes of people f**king, but we don't see that loving touch, that care," she said.
In Sydney Pollack's film, Streep portrayed the role of a baroness, while Redford took on the character of a big game hunter. In the scene the "Lions for Lambs" star talked about, the "Indecent Proposal" actor tenderly shampooed and scrubbed her hair in a South African river.
He was also reciting lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" while doing so, according to the New York Post.
Interestingly, the actor reportedly asked for some coaching on how to give her a shampoo experience to remember at the time, and it seemed like the pointers from Meryl's longtime hair and makeup artists helped him improve a lot compared to what he did in the first take.
"Redford took the lesson, and he just really got into it, and he was great. By take five, I was so in love," Streep recalled.
"I didn't want it to end that day, even in spite of the hippos."
Recalling other experiences while filming in the African river, she said they were warned by the production team to be mindful of potentially dangerous animals in the area.
"We had lions, but they were imported from California and they were supposedly fine -- tame. They were not," she revealed.
"And the second thing we were told is the animal that kills the most people in Africa is the hippopotamus if you get between the hippopotamus and the water. So we were shooting in the river and the hippopotamuses were right above it."
Meryl attended the film festival's opening ceremony earlier this week to receive her honorary Palme d'Or award.
Also known as the "Golden Palm," this award is given to artists in recognition of their lifetime achievements and contributions to cinema.
