Netflix
Six years after Meryl Streep and James Corden teamed up in the musical “Into the Woods,” they are back to singing and dancing together in “The Prom.”
“Extra’s” Cheslie Kryst spoke with Meryl and James about their Netflix project, in which they play Broadway stars who take on a small town in Indiana to help a gay teen whose prom is canceled so she can’t take her girlfriend.
What about their real-life prom experiences? Meryl shared, “I went with a bunch of different guys… I have a tiny high school, 400 people. Everybody went to the prom.”
“My first prom I went to, I wore a dress that had spaghetti straps,” Meryl revealed. “And I got into the backseat of the car and I sat down like this and both of them popped off… There was nothing to hold that dress up except my two arms. So I spent the whole dance like [that].”
James grew up in the UK, so he went to a “Valentine’s sort of ball/dance,” instead of a prom. He explained, “I just went with all my friends. We went and drunk illegally in a pub.”
Corden confessed, “We thought that we were being really cool with our fake IDs and stuff. We now realize the landlord was a criminal and didn’t care.”
Newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman plays Emma, the teen who eventually gets her chance to shine. Luckily, Pellman’s real-life prom experience was not anything like Emma’s! “I wore this really pretty, red, off-the-shoulder dress… It was Halston, and I rented it and I felt so cute.”
“The Prom” streams on Netflix December 11.