Mamie Gummer ‘Idolizes’ Cate Blanchett: Meryl Streep’s Daughter Dishes On Her Favorite Actress

Mamie Gummer “idolizes” Cate Blanchett, the star reveals in a recent interview with fashion magazine Net-A-Porter.

The 32-year-old daughter of Meryl Streep sat down with writer Emily Cronin to discuss fashion, her activism, and working with her mom on Ricki and the Flash.

“We had never really talked about [working] together, but we had also never ruled it out. I wasn’t about to say, ‘I’m not going to work with Meryl Streep. I refuse!’ Making the film was a wonderful experience, artistically and personally.”

In Ricki, Mamie plays Julie, estranged daughter of Meryl Streep’s character, Ricki.

“In a film loaded with music and live performance, Streep stars as Ricki, a guitar heroine who gave up everything for her dream of rock-and-roll stardom, but is now returning home to make things right with her family. Streep stars opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer, who plays her fictional daughter.”

You’d think that growing up with, and working with, a three-time Oscar winner for a mother would consider her own mom as her acting idol. You’d be wrong: for Mamie, who loves theater as much as she loves acting in movies, it’s Cate Blanchett.

“Theater has remained a priority in her life. She’s been able to balance the [theater and movies].”

Blanchett’s career has been defined by taking on challenging roles featuring strong women, something that Mamie hopes to repeat in her own career. Turned off by the traditional Hollywood sexism (“One audition I went for was for the role of Joan of Arc, and at the end of the character description it said, ‘She has an undeniable sex appeal. Nudity required.’ “), Mamie has instead chosen to focus on roles that empower women, rather than reducing them to sex symbols.

It’s this passion for quality women’s work that prompted Mamie to team up with Make It Fair, a campaign pushing for gender equality in the entertainment industry. She even appears in the campaign’s satirical video aimed at drawing attention to gender inequality in the movie industry.

“Women get to be naked in movies twice as often as men do… Only 70% of speaking roles are given to men. We won’t relent, ’til it’s 100%. It’s only fair that men should have it all.”

Ricki and the Flash, starring Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep, and Rick Springfield, hits theaters Friday.