NEW YORK _ There's a reason why Tom Hanks never worked with Meryl Streep before "The Post."
"I failed my audition for 'Mamma Mia!'" Hanks joked at a panel Sunday night, following the first New York screening of Steven Spielberg's new movie at AMC Lincoln Square. Somewhat surprisingly, he "never came close (to co-starring with her). I never dreamed that it would be possible."
The Oscar winners certainly picked a timely film for their first vehicle together. Set in 1971, "The Post" (in select theaters Dec. 22, expands nationwide Jan. 12) centers on the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post's Katharine "Kay" Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they wrestle to publish the Pentagon Papers, a massive cover-up of government secrets spanning decades.
Most of the action takes place over just a few days, with the drama stemming from the Nixon administration's efforts to stop The Washington Post and The New York Times from printing top-secret information about the Vietnam War. The film's resonance in the era of "fake news" and journalist bans from White House briefings wasn't lost on Spielberg, who read Liz Hannah's script just nine months ago and rushed it into production.
"I need a motivational purpose to make any movie," Spielberg said. "When I read the first draft of the script, this wasn't something that could wait three years or two years _ this was a story I felt we needed to tell today."
"The Post" also tackles the treatment of women in the workplace, showing how Kay is constantly undermined by male investors and board members who don't believe a woman can run a newspaper. Empowering moments later in the film, as she takes male subordinates to task, earned cheers and applause from audience members, no doubt spurred in part by the ongoing sexual-harassment scandal that has rocked multiple industries this fall.
The film's themes of institutionalized sexism and a free press are "joined at the hip," Spielberg said. "The relevance is up to everybody. But obviously, sometimes bad things happen twice and history is certainly repeating itself."
Streep hadn't read "The Post" before her headline-making speech at January's Golden Globes, where she touted the importance of journalists during Trump's presidency. Like Hanks, who praised the "deep respect and understanding" between the real-life Kay and Ben, she was drawn to their characters' professional dynamic.
"It was a relationship between a man and a woman that wasn't based on any other feelings," Streep said. "It was a friendship that was so deep, it was like family. (The script) interested me because it was about the working atmosphere. This is so important right now to think about: the atmosphere in which men and women can deal with each other, especially if the woman is the superior."
Reviews and social media reactions to "The Post" are embargoed for the time being, but we can tell you that the film (which clocked in at just under two hours) earned a standing ovation Sunday. Its star-studded cast also includes Carrie Coon, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Tracy Letts and David Cross, with Spielberg's go-to composer John Williams handling the score.
