Meryl Streep Gave Lin-Manuel Miranda Advice

He already leads the perfect life, now give the man the perfect friend. Lin-Manuel Miranda got Mary Poppins advice from Meryl Streep, and I feel this friendship may very well be fated in the stars. Think about it. They're both consummate overachievers with bucketloads of charisma and talent. So how did this come about? Well, Miranda told The New York Times that, while preparing for his role in Mary Poppin Returns, in which he plays a character vaguely similar (though not identical to) Dick Van Dyke's in the original movie, Streep gave him some invaluable advice on how to cultivate an authentic British accent.

"I asked Meryl Streep, who’s in the film, what her favorite British accent is. She said Thatcher," he said. "Thatcher was a self-created persona. [Thatcher] took elocution lessons, and made up her own accent."

While I worship Streep, I'm not totally sure about this advice — at least if she intended Miranda to use it to work on his own accent in the movie. It's kind of cool and meta, a famously posh sounding accent from a working class British prime minister wanting to be perceived as authentically posh. But is this an appropriate accent for Jack the lamplighter, a character who is an approximate version of Dick Van Dyke's smudge-faced chimney sweep? No, no it is not.

Still, I hope this oh-so casual Streep-centered anecdote means exactly what I want it to mean. I hope it means that Streep and Miranda are on their way to becoming best friends. Yes, there's a 30 year age gap, but this is 2017, people.

Here's why they have to be pals. Firstly, they both excel at what they do. To quote the ever-canny Cher on Clueless on her friendship with Dionne: "She's my friend because we both know what it's like for people to be jealous of us." Preach. Can you imagine being Streep's friend as someone who wasn't at the absolute top of their game? After all, this is an actor who is popularly referred to as "the best actress of her generation." But happily for Streep, Miranda's doing pretty fantastically in his career, too. I mean, the man wrote Hamilton, which besides being the musical that your friend cannot stop obsessing over, won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for a record breaking 16 Tony Awards. Crikey.

Secondly, both Miranda and Streep presumably have a similarly intense work ethic. Well, it's an assumption, but, given how prolific this pair is, it's hard to imagine them taking much holiday leave. This matters. Ultimately, your lifestyle dictates who you're friends with, because if you hate lounging around watching episodes of Adventure Time and eating two day old pizza, you're never going to be pals with me. Similarly, if you're into mountain climbing, extreme sports, and beach volleyball, I'm going to find it hard to pencil you in. Miranda and Streep would be like a power couple, but platonic. I'm thinking networking breakfasts, late night research trips, lunchtime gym trips to keep in shape to play their next grueling roles.

In short, this friendship would be good for both of them. And us. Especially us. OK, mostly us.