Meryl and Anna both arrive wearing yellow scarves, looking like a pair of generals in matching epaulets. We’re in a spacious suite at the Crosby Street Hotel, gathered for a conversation with a timely premise: What happens when you put two Mirandas in a room? Filmmaker Greta Gerwig, who directed Meryl in 2019’s Little Women, is also here. As a devoted fan of The Devil Wears Prada films—DWP2 (as it’s known at Vogue) opens in theaters on May 1—she has kindly offered to moderate. My role is something like a court stenographer.
The suite’s cheerful decor matches Meryl’s light, sunny pashmina. Anna’s scarf is more of an egg-yolk yellow, made from a thicker, fringed cashmere. They catch up like old friends, talking about theater outings, politics, parenting, and grandparenting. Greta describes the emotional whiplash of returning home to her young children after months away filming her upcoming Narnia movie (“They punished me on FaceTime,” she says, and Meryl nods knowingly). Outside, the winter temperatures are record-breaking; inside, it feels almost cozy.
But time is short. This meeting is the result of months of planning and not a little persuasion, combined with a remarkable photo shoot: Annie Leibovitz photographed Anna and Meryl, with Grace Coddington styling—a power quartet if ever there was one.
Below is a lightly edited version of the conversation that followed. Meryl and Anna began, naturally enough, by talking about coats, which are something of a motif in the first film. (Who can forget the parade of coats flung onto the assistant’s desk? Though for the record, I’ve only seen Anna politely hand hers off.) “I like coats,” Meryl said. “They cover all the sins of whatever else is underneath.”
“And they’re easy to try on,” Anna added.
The conversation moved swiftly from there.
Greta Gerwig: The question of how you present yourself is central to The Devil Wears Prada. For men, there’s a clear code: dress for the job you want. But for women, dressing has always been more ambiguous. Anna, how much do you think about that? Do you consider how women are meant to dress to communicate power?
Anna Wintour: I don’t think wearing a power suit to the office is at all necessary. Think about the women we admire: Mrs. Obama comes to mind. Whether she’s wearing J.Crew, Duro Olowu, or Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, she always looks like herself. I’m full of admiration for New York City’s new first lady—she looks so cool, wears a lot of vintage, and feels young and modern while being entirely herself. To be fair, Melania Trump also always looks like herself in what she wears.
Meryl Streep: I have so many thoughts about this. I think the most… powerful message our current first lady sent was with the coat that said “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” when she was going to see migrant children who were detained. All dress is about expressing yourself, but we’re also subject to larger historical and political expectations. I’m stunned by how women in power have to have bare arms on television while men are covered in shirts, ties, or suits. There’s an apology built into women’s clothing. They have to show their smallness. It’s compensatory: the advancements of women in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one have been destabilizing. It’s as if women have to say, “I’m little. I can’t walk in these shoes. I can’t run. I’m bare, not threatening.”
Gerwig: Meryl, you and I were talking about women in films, and the great roles women have had—like Bette Davis or Rosalind Russell. Even at a time in America when there weren’t many women with full careers, the roles for women were terrific. And you said, “Yes, well, that’s because there was no actual threat of Rosalind Russell taking Cary Grant’s job.”
Streep: Or Spencer Tracy’s. So it was fun. It was like cGerwig: In the past, women weren’t seen as a real threat, so we could be larger-than-life and outrageous in films.
Streep: We could be brash, smoke, and act tough.
Gerwig: What I find interesting is that a character like Miranda Priestly is the kind of outsized role Bette Davis would have been allowed to play.
Streep: Absolutely. Unapologetic.
Gerwig: I wondered if that’s why you decided to return to the role 20 years later. Was it watching the world change and thinking about what we need from Miranda now?
Streep: I was interested in the business aspect—carrying the weight of many people’s jobs, running a large organization, keeping it afloat. With this sequel, I thought, “Where are they going to go?” Now that everything feels like it’s disintegrating, with institutions being undermined or exploded in a way that makes the world feel so uncertain, I wondered what they would do. And I think they’ve captured something true about the business today.
Wintour: What I liked about the first film is that it showed the world how big the fashion business is—it’s a true global economic force, and the film acknowledged that. So much has changed, but I like to think we’re evolving rather than disintegrating. We’re still here, doing our jobs in different ways and across multiple platforms instead of just one. How wonderful is that? We’re reaching far more people.
Streep: Oh, I didn’t mean disintegrating!
Wintour: When I heard rumors about this new film, I called Meryl to ask if it was true. I knew she’d tell me if it was going to be okay. She hadn’t read the script yet, so she said she’d call me back. And she did. She read it and called to say, “Anna, I think it’s going to be alright.” She told me very little about the plot, but I trusted her completely.
Streep on The Devil Wears Prada 2: “With this one, I thought, ‘Well, where are they going to go?’ And I do think they’ve located something true about the business now.”
Gerwig: Another thing that’s changed: fashion used to be seen as elitist. Why was that?
Wintour: Perhaps because decades ago, we lived in a world of haute couture, where very expensive fashion was only available to a small group of society women. Today, fashion is much more democratic, and its influence is enormous—it’s central to culture. Look at how interested people are in what characters wear in Wuthering Heights or Euphoria. Or big companies hiring great designers: Zara with John Galliano, Gap with Zac Posen, Coach with Stuart Vevers, Uniqlo with Jonathan Anderson and Clare Waight Keller. It’s happening everywhere. The landscape has changed dramatically.
Gerwig: I’d love for you both to talk about being 76. I’m in my early 40s, and I look at both of you and think, “That is worth striving for.”
Wintour: And we’re being photographed by a 76-year-old woman!
Streep: My life… I can’t even begin to answer that. It’s too huge a question. In terms of Miranda, returning to her 20 years later, I honestly thought about Anna and tried to imagine what it’s like to carry her responsibilities while staying as interested and curious about the world as she must be. That’s the key to being alive: always breaking new ground, always pushing forward. And we’re not done yet. What’s fun about this character is that I drew on my role models—different people I know, most of whom are men. That gave me some freedom, too.
ROOM FOR TWO
Wintour: “I’d like to say it’s such an honor to be played by Meryl, however distant Miranda is from myself.” (Seen here in a still from Vogue’s cover video, directed by Nina Ljeti.)
Wintour: First of all, I’d…I’d like to say it’s such an honor to be played by Meryl, even though Miranda is quite different from me. Who wouldn’t think that’s the most extraordinary gift? I like my age. I feel as alive, excited, and aware as ever, and I enjoy learning from my children and from all my teams around the world. It’s always exciting. With experience, you gain a sense of balance and proportion. You understand that life isn’t perfect, things will go wrong, and you just give it your best shot. But if it doesn’t work, you move on. I feel age is actually an advantage.
Streep: Yes.
Wintour: I think a life well lived allows you to lead more easily.
Gerwig: I can definitely say from being on set with Meryl, everybody sits up a little straighter when you’re there.
Streep: That’s ridiculous.
Gerwig: No, it’s true. I saw it happen when we did Little Women together. You were in costume and sat in for your own lighting, and that was the fastest they’ve ever lit anything. It was just: Meryl is sitting in for her lighting. I don’t know if fashion and publishing feel this way, but I deeply believe filmmaking is passed from person to person. Meryl, you’ve experienced that—and some of the people you’ve walked this path with are no longer here. Mike [Nichols] is not here, and Robert [Redford].
Streep: Mike’s here. [Touches her chest.] Mike is so here. That’s the great consolation of getting older. It’s unbearable when every week someone I love dies, but you realize, okay, you have to take her in. You have to take him in. You have to hold all of them. They are in here, you’re going to use them, and they’re going to live. The indelible people don’t go. We don’t lose people. We keep them, and they keep working.
Gerwig: Anna, do you feel that same sense of something being passed on, or a connection to different designers or people who are gone?
Wintour: Well, of course, Vogue is built on the values and traditions of its history. I had the great fortune to work for both Alexander Liberman and Si Newhouse, and they were extraordinary men with fantastic instincts. I do think you should stay grounded in your past. When you understand your history, that’s when you can move forward.
SEEING DOUBLE
“I would dread the shoes. Every day, wow, to pull it together,” says Streep at the prospect of actually having Wintour’s job.
Streep: Do you see anyone having a career like Karl Lagerfeld’s—
Wintour: Yes!
Streep: With that same longevity and influence?
Wintour: I do, I really do. I feel Matthieu has found the job of his dreams. The owners of Chanel—Alain and Gérard Wertheimer—are very patient. They’ve always found that balance between tradition and an openness to change. That was the magic of Karl, who knew history so completely but also had curiosity and restlessness and was an extraordinary multitasker. I think Matthieu has the same vitality and cultural awareness and could be—who knows?—there as long as Karl.
Gerwig: There’s always the question, especially with women, of children and work and how that goes together. I got very excited thinking of interviewing you because nobody asks about being a grandmother. So, I mean, Meryl, I know you are incredibly involved—
Streep: Some say over-involved.
Gerwig: How does being a grandmother balance with work?
Streep: It’s just grabbing seconds, grabbing everything you can of them, with the knowledge of how completely fleeting it all is and how rapidly time goes. This is what my mother said to me, and I said, “Yeah, yeah.” It’s the longest, shortest time. And you can’t get anything back. So take as much as you can… I find it divine. I have six grandchildren, all under six. They’re six, five, four, three, two, and one. I hope we’re not done, but we’ll see. I can’t even talk about how much it means to me that my kids…I wish I could spend as much time with my grandchildren as they do with their kids. The only thing is that they live on opposite coasts, so I’m on airplanes a lot.
Gerwig: And you, Anna, also have grandchildren.
Wintour: I don’t have as many as Meryl. I only have four, and I have four step-grandchildren who grew up all around us. Being a mother when you have the jobs that we have—you have to make the time. I was relentless about going to the games and showing up at parent-teacher meetings, being there when it was important. I felt like Vogue could always wait and that it’s okay to be a busy mother. You make it work. We have a family compound on Long Island, and I try to make it a center for all of us, who are spread all over the world. We love to celebrate birthdays and weddings; traditions are important—we’re English, so we constantly play games and stage countless tennis tournaments—and we try to take care of each other through thick and thin. I try to instill in my children and my grandchildren that family is what counts and family will give you love and support. If you have that, everything else will be fine.
Gerwig: Meryl, you said something to me that has stuck in my head. You said, “Life begins when you make a commitment,” and I thought that was such a wise thing to say. Obviously when you have a family that’s the biggest commitment, but I think for both of you in your work, you’ve made a commitment to your respective fields.
Streep: Tom Stoppard said, “You’ve got to shift your weight.” You’re always, always on unstable ground. It’s so uncertain being an actor. You’re chronically unemployed. And then there’s no real climb, because fame is something you can have in a second. But to build a body of work and have faith in yourself? That takes time, and you can’t do it at home by yourself—it’s not like writing or composing. I don’t think: I love this job. I’m going to have this job for a long time. I think: This is the world. The unstable world. Everything changes and it’s about learning to be prepared for that.
“When I heard rumors that this new film might be happening, I called Meryl to ask if it was true,” says Wintour. “I knew she would tell me if it was going to be all right.”
Wintour: But I also think challenges are really what make what one does interesting. During COVID we had to totally change how we worked, how we communicated—everything. I thought all the time of my son, Charlie, who was a resident at Cornell. He was working in the COVID wards and because his field is mental health, a part of what he had to do was to break tragic news to families when they had lost someone. We were all holed up out in the country, and he would come home every weekend and had to de-scrub and then he would reach for his children and just hold onto them. That for me was context—an important reminder of what was happening in the world even as I was trying to lead these global teams through uncharted waters. What do you do? You find a way.
Gerwig: If you had her job, and you had her job, what is the thing that would be most exciting and what would be the thing that you would think, I can’t do that.
Wintour: There’s no way. I have no gifts. I have absolutely no gifts at all. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t act, I’m useless with my hands, I can’t cook, I certainly can’t sew.
Streep: You run a multinational corporation, that’s all…. I would dread the shoes. Every day, wow, to pull it together. But working with a lot of young people would be thrilling, and to keep all the ideas flowing—I love that kind of engagement—and also just to be creating something that makes people happy. To find beauty. Look for it, nurture it. Support it. That’s a good thing.
Gerwig: And now I’ll just ask one sort of fandom Miranda question. Has her style changed?
Streep: Well, everybody was afraid of Anna on the first one, so we couldn’t fiAnd any clothes. Nobody would give us any clothes. This time we pared her down. We made her simpler and just more essentially herself. We also have less hair with me—so that wasn’t as floppy and messy. She loves an accessory, but there’s a fearless thing about her. Less worried about what anybody thinks.
Gerwig: Did you want to say which is your favorite costume?
Wintour: Oh, the red dress, the Jezebel dress. Pierpaolo!
Streep: Pierpaolo. That he would make that.
Wintour: It’s a great dress. You look amazing in it. What’s the film in which your costumes have been your favorite? I know mine is Out of Africa.
Streep: I don’t know. There were so many great people I’ve worked with. I liked Florence Foster Jenkins because I love a big bosom and they knew how to dress a big bosom at a certain time. Costume is character. When I was at Vassar, that was my degree, in costume design, because I’m a good sewer and I really love drawing. For my thesis I designed 60 costumes for Camino Real—you know, the Tennessee Williams play. And all those characters are so vivid. They’re so idiosyncratic and weird. All my life I’ve thought I’ve been such a pain for whomever is the costume designer. Because I have such little nitpicky ideas.
Read Vogue’s May 2026 Editor’s Letter here.
Gerwig: Meryl, you said this thing about the first movie and how you loved being with everyone on set—with Anne and Emily and Stanley—but that you felt as if you couldn’t quite hang out with them the way that they could hang out with each other.
Streep: Oh, they all had a fabulous time. And I felt like I had to have some distance. I do like a hang, I mean, that’s almost how you pick the things, like, How good is the hang going to be? But I really consciously pulled back, and I was sitting in my trailer just miserable the whole time.
Wintour: What did you read when you were in the trailer?
Streep: I didn’t read. I knitted. I’m still knitting. But I can’t read anything when I’m working because it splits my focus. Especially with this character who has a sort of relentless energy.
Gerwig: When we had a wrap party for Narnia, I realized nobody wanted me there. I was like, Nobody can have any fun as long as I’m there.
Wintour: I know that feeling.
Gerwig: So when I embraced the last crying child, who was sad that the movie was over, I was like, “I’m going to take myself home.” And I almost felt like, as I walked out the door, everyone was like, “Yay.”
Wintour: The art of the drop-by is also good. You go for five minutes and head for the hills.
Gerwig: You want to tell us the plot of the movie?
Streep: That’s, like, the last thing I ever remember about a movie. I am the best audience for my own movies because I never remember what happened.
Wintour: Let’s hope it’s a happy ending.
Streep: Yes, it’s a happy ending. Or not happy, exactly. But it’s real and it’s triumphant.
Wintour: Can’t wait.
In this story: For Wintour: hair, Bobby Michael; makeup, Melissa Silver. For Streep: hair and makeup, Donald S. McInnes. Tailor: Bill Bull. Produced by AL Studio. Set Design: Mary Howard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Meryl Streep Anna Wintour and the themes of power fashion and character in the context of the rumored sequel presented in a natural conversational tone
General About the Sequel
Q Is The Devil Wears Prada 2 actually happening
A As of the May 2026 Vogue feature it is confirmed The article is a deepdive conversation with Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour released to coincide with the films announcement and early production
Q Will Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway be in it
A The Vogue article confirms Meryl Streep is returning as Miranda Priestly Anne Hathaways involvement as Andy Sachs is hinted at but not explicitly detailed the focus is on Mirandas evolution
Q Whats the sequel going to be about
A According to the Vogue piece it explores Miranda Priestly at a later career stage facing industry disruption and potential succession with themes of legacy versus relevance
On Power Leadership
Q How are Miranda Priestly and Anna Wintours versions of power similar
A Both wield power through impeccable taste unwavering standards and an aura of unshakeable authority Their power comes from influence and respect not just a job title
Q Whats the main difference between their power styles
A Anna Wintours power is real and institutional Miranda Priestly is a fictional character who amplifies those traits for drama Wintour has noted Miranda is much nicer than her fictional counterpart
Q In the sequel how has Mirandas power changed
A The article suggests her power is now being challenged Shes no longer the undisputed gatekeeper she must adapt to a new world that questions traditional hierarchies making her power more strategic and perhaps more vulnerable
Q Whats a Miranda Priestly lesson in leadership that still applies today
A The expectation of excellence The famous cerulean sweater monologue wasnt just about fashionit was about understanding the depth history and impact of your industry which commands respect
