The moment Meryl Streep read the script for “The Devil Wears Prada,” she knew it would be—in her words—“Yuge.” But despite a truckload of awards and a reputation as the greatest actress on the planet, Streep had always been hesitant to negotiate for more pay. Maybe it was the character Miranda Priestly, a fashion magazine editor so powerful she could terrify underlings without even raising her voice, that pushed her to do it. But the Oscar-winning actress felt emboldened. “The offer was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project,” Streep tells Variety. “There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.”