Meryl Streep on screen and stage Deer Hunter" (1978) proved to be a breakthrough for Streep and she received her first Academy Award nomination for it. She won the award the following year for playing a troubled wife in the top-grossing drama "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979). Also in 1978, Streep played a German married to a Jew in Nazi Germany in the television miniseries "Holocaust", which earned her the Emmy Award for Best Actress. Streep established herself as a leading Hollywood actress in the 1980s. She played dual roles in the period drama "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981), and starred as a Polish Holocaust survivor in
Meryl Streep waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable". Mike Nichols, who directed Streep in "Silkwood", "Heartburn", "Postcards from the Edge", and "Angels in America", praised Streep's ability to transform herself into her characters, remarking that, "In every role, she becomes a totally new human being. As she becomes the person she is portraying, the other performers begin to react to her as if she were that person." He said that directing her is "so much like falling in love that it has the characteristics of a time which you remember as magical, but which is