Streep went to Bernards High School in Somerset County, New Jersey, where she was a cheerleader, and participated in plays like "Oklahoma!" and "The Music Man." She also did gymnastics among a long list of extracurriculars, but in no way would she have considered herself the popular girl.

According to Michael Schulman's "Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep," Streep said while young, kids would "chase me up into a tree and hit my legs with sticks until they bled" and thought she was "ugly."

Streep turned to magazines like "Seventeen" and "Vogue" to transform herself in high school and opened up about her evolution during a 2010 commencement speech at Barnard College.

"Empathy is at the heart of the actor's art," said Streep. "And in high school, another form of acting took hold of me. I wanted to learn how to be appealing. So I studied the character I imagined I wanted to be, that of the generically pretty high school girl."