Meryl Streep Got An Oscar Nod For A Role From A Book She Called 'A Crime Against Literature'

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Robert James Waller's "The Bridges of Madison County" was a publishing phenomenon upon its release in 1992. The novel landed on The New York Times' Bestseller list in August of that year and hung out there for 164 consecutive weeks. Whether you were traveling on a plane or going to the beach, you couldn't go anywhere without hitting someone with their nose buried in the slender 192-page volume at that time. The book might've been dismissed, if not outright panned, by most critics (though there were notable outliers, Roger Ebert among them), but there was no denying it had connected with millions of people. Ergo, a film adaptation was inevitable.

Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment got out way in front of the book's success by acquiring the rights pre-publication for a mere $25,000 in 1991. Spielberg saw blockbuster potential in the story of Francesca Johnson, an unhappily married war bride who, while her husband and children are off attending the Iowa State Fair, engages in a brief affair with Robert Kincaid, a 50-ish photojournalist for National Geographic. It's a melancholy tale of a romance that cannot be, one that touched the hearts of people who still hold a flame for a long-gone love from earlier in their life. Spielberg's instincts would prove to be spot-on, but he had to cycle through a few directors (Sydney Pollack, Bruce Beresford, and, interestingly, himself) before Clint Eastwood stepped in.

Eastwood, who was already on board to play Kincaid, used his leverage as director to override Spielberg's preferences for the part of Francesca (Isabella Rossellini and Catherine Deneuve) to cast Meryl Streep. Streep, one of the greatest actors of all time, was not everyone's ideal choice for the role. Amusingly, she wasn't sure herself because she absolutely abhorred Waller's novel.

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In a 1995 Time Magazine feature on the making of "The Bridges of Madison County," Streep expressed in no uncertain terms her distaste for the book. She firmly turned down the part when it was initially offered and even refused to let her assistant borrow a copy. "I'm not going to let you read it," said Streep. "It's a crime against literature."

Streep eventually relented when she read screenwriter Richard LaGravenese's skillful adaptation of the novel. She was also keen to work with her co-star because she dug Eastwood's unfussy, one-take-on-move-on approach. As she told Time:

"You know, people have called me a technical actor. But I have always loved that first encounter. I almost always like the first reading better than anything we ever do subsequently. I come ready, and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable."

It turns out that once you free Waller's story of his clunky prose, "The Bridges of Madison County" is a total heartbreaker. That last moment the leads share in the movie adaptation, with a rain-drenched Eastwood wordlessly inviting Streep to leave her husband's vehicle and get in his truck, is devastating. The original book might've been "a crime against literature," but the film version is an all-time great tear-jerker that snagged Streep one of her many, many Oscar nominations.