Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius in Doubt.

LOS ANGELES -- No actual nuns were consulted, used as templates, or otherwise exploited by Meryl Streep in her starring role as the inquisitorial Sister Aloysius in Doubt.

"She came out of me just the only way she could. She felt like she was there all the while, waiting to be born," says Streep of her role in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his Broadway play set in the '60s, about a nun who pursues her certainty a popular priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has carried on an "inappropriate relationship" with her school's first black student. The film opens Friday in Toronto and then goes into wider release this month.

So there you have it. Streep -- the top-of-the-foodchain among actors -- "gives birth" to her characters, be she a nun in Doubt, a promiscuous free-love sprite in Mamma Mia, a dictatorial editrix in The Devil Wears Prada, or the late French-food maven Julia Child in the upcoming Julie & Julia.

The act of creation is especially startling in Doubt, given that Streep is from a Presbyterian family in New Jersey, and Catholicism, to her outsider's eye, was "this mysterious, attractive, seductive thing. The girls at the Catholic school were seen as much wilder than anybody at my high school."

Her actor's status is such a "given," it's been the butt of jokes (The Simpsons once referred to a celebrity scent called Meryl Streep's "Versatility.") She laughs, almost proudly, at mention of the mock tribute. But it brings up the question, is her reputation a burden? Is she expected to produce an Oscar-nominated performance every time out?

"I guess I try to clear away anything that's going to inhibit me in my work. I have a very bad short-term memory, so that helps," she says.

"The rehearsal process is a wonderful clearing house for all that. You check your medals at the door and you just go in, and the whole job is to be as honest as you can to this person that you're inhabiting and their convictions and needs and dilemma and all those things. It's a wonderful place to be. It's only when I get out and about in the marketing end of movie-making that I get those laurels thrown at my feet."

But if her reputation is out-of-mind to the actress herself, it wasn't to Shanley who, once he signed her, felt compelled to find a weighty co-star. Cue the Oscar-winner Hoffman (Capote).

"I knew I needed to put her up against somebody who'd make her sweat, and if he didn't, she'd mop the floor with him," Shanley says.

If lines can be drawn between her characters, she's comfortable comparing Sister Aloysius and The Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly.

Each had a "novitiate" to corrupt -- Priestly's being a small town girl, new to New York, played by Anne Hathaway, and Sister Aloysius' being Sister James (Amy Adams), a trusting, 19-year-old novice nun whose wide-eyed innocence is shaken by the battle between her "boss" and the priest.

"These are women in positions of power. And if there were 20 parts for men in positions of power -- who give no ground in their positions of power -- you wouldn't even notice it. It wouldn't even register on your radar. You know, we're very uncomfortable, I think, at this point in our evolution as human beings, with women in leadership positions. I've been on enough sets with women directors to see just how bumpy that terrain can be to negotiate."

And though the play/movie itself is called Doubt because the line between guilt and innocence is irrevocably blurred by the final act, Streep defends her character's adherence to certainty. "I loved Sister Aloysius, I really have great sympathy for her point of view.

"But we have them in all our families, the people who always see danger at the door. And guess what? We need those people to guard the door.

"I don't think (Sister Aloysius) would mind being called a dragon. She is protecting the gates for these vulnerable children."

She cites the case of the Boston priest Paul Shanley, who was convicted of sexual assault against a male minor. "He was everyone's favourite priest, people loved him. And I have no doubt that he ran roughshod over numerous nuns who said, 'There's something wrong here.'

"I think we're animals, I think we smell this stuff," Streep goes on. "You know, I think we operate on radar that isn't logical, and I think that's what she does.

She has seen it and felt it before. Whatever her past is, she has met this devil before and recognizes it."

More Artists