The actor and director Meryl Streep was scared to work with: “Terrifying and destabilising”Starting out in an industry as tough as making movies is a daunting prospect. Most actors in the world could only dream of having half the career that Meryl Streep has enjoyed. However, Streep once explained that she was “terrified” to work with both Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’. It was because Hanks, clearly comfortable with Spielberg’s techniques, rarely put a foot wrong: “Tom never made a mistake, ever.