Meryl Streep Recalls Meeting Al Pacino When 'I Was Nobody'

She explains how nervous she was and hopes others don't feel that way with her.

ByABC News
August 10, 2016, 8:01 AM

— -- While promoting her new film, "Florence Foster Jenkins," acting icon Meryl Streep spoke about what it must be like for young actors and fans to meet her. This kind of accidental intimidation is close to home for the Oscar-winner since she recalls a time she was on the other side of fame.

"I remember meeting Al Pacino when I was very young," she told ABC News. "It was 'The Godfather' time and I was nobody."

Streep said her lip kept quivering when she spoke to him, which she cringes to think about now.

"I hate to think I'm having that effect on somebody else, because I remember it so," she said. "If there's one good thing about the selfie world or how close in everybody is to everybody, is that the scales fall from your eyes and we are all just people. It's more evident than maybe it was in the olden days."

PHOTO: Meryl Streep is a guest on "Good Morning America," on Aug. 9, 2016, airing on the ABC Television Network.
Meryl Streep is a guest on "Good Morning America," on Aug. 9, 2016, airing on the ABC Television Network.

As for her newest film, Streep said when director Stephen Frears called, "I said yes," before she even know what the film was really about.

"He said, 'Don't you want to know what it's about?'" she added.

Streep plays a tone-deaf singer in the film and while many consider her a pretty good vocalist in real life, she said her family doesn't feel the same way.

"For years I was never allowed to sing at home, because my kids would go "Mama stop!'" she said. "I don't know what that is, I mean it's not that bad!"