Hollywood icon and actress Meryl Streep may be one of the most decorated actresses in the business, but she says being a mother is the hardest job she's held.
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The three-time Oscar winner has been described as "the best actress of her generation" and is known for her versatility and lengthy resumé. But after giving birth to her first child at age 30 and having four children, she says being a mother is way more difficult than acting.
"Acting — that's praise, money, fulfillment," she told The Washington Post in 1998. "Mothering — they don't even say, 'Thank you.' There's no comparison to acting. I can't really call acting work, since it's secretly so fun. Acting isn't like real life. Life is about not being sure: Is this the right school for this kid? All those uncertainties."
Streep has been traveling back and forth between movie sets and home and wrestling toddlers off her legs since she filmed "Sophie's Choice" in 1982 (which earned her one of her Oscars).
The "Mamma Mia" (2008) star had four children with her longtime husband and sculptor Don Gummer. The pair tied the knot in 1978 but have been separated for around six years.
Now, their children are all grown up, and some even have children of their own — making Streep a grandmother.
Surprisingly, all of Streep's children pursued a career in show business. That is not the case for other Hollywood families such as Harrison Ford's children or Andie MacDowell's kids, though we can say the same for Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's blended family.
"We really made an attempt to move them out of the public eye," the actress told Kjersti Flaa in 2017. "I really was very adamant that they not be seen as my adorable props and tried to keep them out. And as a result, they all wanted to be in show business. The apple doesn't fall far."
Here's everything we know about Meryl Streep's children:
Henry Wolfe Gummer (44 years old)
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The oldest and the only boy, Henry was born on Nov. 13, 1979.
Henry started to follow his mother's footsteps into acting and attended Dartmouth College. He then joined New York University's Tisch School of Arts but dropped out after only two years when he realized acting wasn't for him.
Instead, he turned his passions to music.
"For me, music was more stimulating from day to day," he told New York Daily News in 2011. "It was something that I didn't need to be working on a project to practice. I can do it whenever, and I get satisfaction from completing songs that I never really got from acting."
Henry first launched himself into the music business by co-founding indie pop band Bravo Silva. The band released an EP called "July" in 2004 and a self-titled full-length album in 2005 before breaking up.
Now on his own, the budding musician then transitioned to a solo career. He moved to LA and began to perform under the moniker Henry Wolfe. In 2009, he released two EPs: "The Blue House," with his original music; and "Wolfe Sings Field," comprising songs penned by writer Peter Field.
His debut album "Linda Vista" dropped in 2011 on Wolfe's own Undermountain Music label. He even got to perform a few of those songs — "Someone Else" and "Stop the Train" — on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" the same year.
Henry's musical talent has actually extended into film. His song "Someone Else" was licensed and featured in the comedy "Terri" (2001) starring John C. Reilly. Plus, an early version of "Stop the Train" appeared on "Julie and Julia" (2009), which stars his mother. And his song "For the Turnstiles" was heard in the musical comedy drama "Ricki and the Flash" (2015), starring both his mother and his younger sister, Mamie.
Henry told the New York Daily News that having such a famous mother also has its drawbacks.
"The fact that my mom is who she is can be overshadowing. Sometimes I worry that my story isn't good enough," he said. "There are a certain amount of assumptions that go along with that, which tend to not be fair, like the recognition somehow helps me. But it also hurts because people start to think that I don't work hard and they don't take me seriously."
On the personal side, Henry has been married to Tamryn Storm Hawker since 2019. They had their first child, a daughter named Ida June, in July 2020 and a son named Quinn William in May 2022.
Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer (40 years old)
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Streep's first daughter and second child, Mary Willa, who goes by "Mamie," was born on Aug. 3, 1983.
Armed with her mother's high cheekbones, like the rest of her sisters, Mamie also became an actress, just like Streep.
Her first film was actually the 1986 film "Heartburn" alongside her mother when Mamie was just 20 months old. But she was credited as "Natalie Stern" to keep her identity as Streep's daughter under wraps.
Mamie's next on-screen appearance didn't come until 2006, in "The Hoax" alongside Richard Gere. And she then earned a role on the 2007 drama "Evening," which also starred Streep.
After a brief modeling stint in her early 20s and an off-Broadway role in "Mr. Marmalade'' (which earned her a Theatre World Award), Mamie moved back to film and television.
She's most known for her frequent appearances with recurring roles in the legal drama "The Good Wife" as well as its spinoff "The Good Fight." She's also appeared in the drama "True Detective," the otherworldly drama "The Right Stuff" and the action series "Blood of Zeus."
Though the role was somewhat short-lived, Mamie also starred as the titular character in her own series, medical drama "Emily Owens, M.D." in 2012.
"Acting is really fun and deeply gratifying," the actress told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2012. "When I was younger, it was more of a look-at-me kind of endeavor. But as an actor goes deeper, it becomes 'look-at-me and see YOU': What can I reveal about YOU, the audience, that you recognize."
Mamie then got to share the screen with her mother for the third time in the musical comedy "Ricki and The Flash," with them playing a mother-daughter duo.
At the premiere of that film, the "Devil Wears Prada" (2006) star praised her daughter's performance.
"She's brave and fearless and funny and free," Streep said. "She's a free talent. It doesn't have any cover-up — she's the real deal."
For her part, Mamie admitted to People that working with her mother in the film initially concerned her because she didn't want the tense dynamics between their characters to hurt her mother's feelings.
"There's this one scene where I really was quite eviscerating and I was worried about if my words actually wounded [Streep]," she said, "but after the first take, I looked over and she just had this big grin on her face, so that was a pleasant surprise."
Mamie was also the first to make Streep a grandmother. She welcomed a son into the world in February 2019 with her then-fiance (now husband), producer and writer Mehar Sethi.
"I've been working like mad for quite a while, so I'm getting ready for my first grandchild," Streep told Interview before her grandson was born. "My daughter's having a baby in February, so I'm going to go out and ruin her life. I specialize in unsolicited advice."
Mamie also gave birth to a daughter in 2021.
Grace Jane Gummer (37 years old)
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Streep's second daughter and third child was born on May 9, 1986.
And, inevitably, Grace also became an actress. Her first role was playing a younger version of Streep's character in the 1993 film "House of Spirits" when she was around 7 years old. Like her older sister, Grace was credited with a fake name (Jane Grey) to keep her identity as Streep's daughter private.
Continuing to act as her mother's daughter, Grace graduated from Vassar College, Streep's alma mater, with degrees in art history and Italian.
Less than a year after she left college, her acting career ignited with her stage debut in the off-off-Broadway play "The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents."
Grace was actually asked to help with the play's costume design. But after reading the script, she knew she had to audition and nabbed the lead role.
The budding actress told Collider in 2022 that she knows she was in a unique position when trying to break into the industry because of her mother.
"But once I started doing it, I couldn't deny it and I loved it so much so there was sort of nothing that was gonna stop me," she said. "But it was really important for me to forge my own path for myself and to make it mine and to not be in reference to her constantly or in her shadow. It was essential for me to make my own name."
After her acting debut, she earned her first leading role on the silver screen in Nickelodeon's teen drama "Gigantic."
"I was number one on the call sheet, so I had to really learn a lot really fast, really young," Grace told Collider. "It's not the job that I think that I would have seen myself doing necessarily, but I learned a lot technically about how to be a working actor."
A few years later, Gummer made her Broadway premiere in the revival of "Arcadia," which earned her a Theatre World Award. The next year, she made her second Broadway appearance in "The Columnist" opposite John Lithgow.
After a small role in the black-and-white dramedy "Frances Ha" (2012), written by the now-film power duo Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, Grace returned to television with appearances on a number of prominent shows.
She secured gigs in the musical drama "Smash," the conspiracy thriller "Zero Hour," the drama "The Newsroom," the hit drama thriller "Mr. Robot," the medical true-crime miniseries "Dr. Death" and the hit series "American Horror Story: Freak Show."
More recently, Grace grabbed a leading role in the scary drama "Let the Right One In," though it was canceled after one season
In her personal life, Grace married decorated music producer Mark Ronson in August 2021, and the couple had their first daughter together in early 2023.
Louisa Jacobson Gummer (32 years old)
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
The youngest of Streep's children, Louisa, was born June 12, 1991, when the "Out of Africa" (1985) star was entering her 40s.
Just like Streep and Louisa's older sister, the youngest Gummer also graduated from Vassar but with a degree in psychology.
Louisa, who goes by Louisa Jacobson (her middle name) professionally, told the New York Times in 2023 that she actually wanted to be a therapist in school.
"Because of the way I grew up, there are parts of the business that I know are difficult," she added. "And growing up with fame in my household, it provided us with a lot of privileges, but it also came with a lot of anxiety."
After realizing that line of work wasn't for her, she eventually earned a fine arts master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama — again, just like her mother. Following her graduation, Louisa also attended the British American Drama Academy in Oxford.
Similar to her closest sister in age, Louisa got her introduction to acting through the stage play "Member of the Wedding" in the 2018 Williamstown Theatre Festival. She followed that up by starring as Juliet in The Old Globe's production of "Romeo and Juliet."
Louisa didn't make her on-screen debut until 2019, in the TV movie "Gone Hollywood" alongside "Game of Thrones" alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. But her breakout role came three years later after earning the role of Marian Brook on HBO's hit historical series "The Gilded Age" alongside a stacked cast including Nathan Lane and Cynthia Nixon.
Louisa told Tatler in 2022 that she knows she'll always be accused of landing roles simply because her mother is Streep.
"It's going to be a constant thing throughout my life, 'Do I deserve what I have?'" she said. "But I think about Jane Fonda and how she made a name for herself. And there's been plenty of [other] people who've been able to carve their own path. I think it just takes time and not reading Twitter and just focusing on what I want to achieve as an artist."
