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 self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career" but she "adds a level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving". Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari, a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to the inner-city kids of East Harlem, in the music drama "Music of the Heart" (1999). Streep replaced singer Madonna, who left the project before filming began due to creative differences with director Wes Craven. Required to perform on the violin, Streep went through two months of intense training, five to six hours a day. Streep received nominations for