Lily James "cried" before she met Meryl Streep.
Lily James
The 'Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again' star - who played Donna, a younger version of Meryl's character in the hit musical movie - adored working with the Hollywood star and admits she is her "favourite" actress.
She said: "Our paths didn't cross that much because of the nature of the film. But she seems just really rooted and cool and generous. But you know, she's Meryl Streep, so she walks in a room and it's amazing. She was singing in this chapel, and I knew I was about to meet her, and I started to cry. It was just too much to get my head around. And I told myself to pull it together. She is my favourite actress."
And the 29-year-old actress worked hard to capture the "essence" of Meryl.
She added: "Well, I tried to be really proactive about it, just to show that I'd done all the work I possibly could. And I watched the movie thousands and thousands of times and tried to mimic her mannerisms and capture what I thought the essence of Donna was and what Meryl did."
Lily was overwhelmed about working with Cher too.
Speaking about Cher's time on set, she told the New York Times: "That was wild. I brought my mum in the day Cher was singing. And me and my mum had this amazing image of watching at the monitors in a dark corner of Pinewood [Studios, near London], just shaking. It was very surreal, this front-row, private, intimate gig of Cher's. Her voice is so overwhelmingly powerful and rich, and when you hear it in the flesh, it's mesmerising."
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