Oscar spotlight - Meryl Streep

One of the most formidable forces in Hollywood is Meryl Streep, who completes 15 Oscar nominations this year. Her role as the charming, mysterious, yet vulnerable Sophie Zawistowski in Sophie's Choice won her an Oscar in 1983.

Sophie's Choice may be Streep's most memorable film, but her first Oscar win was in 1980 for Kramer vs Kramer, in the Best Supporting Actress category. This film was then 'adapted' in Bollywood under the name Akele Hum Akele Tum with Manisha Koirala portraying the role originally played by Streep.

Meryl Streep with her second Oscar in 1983. After this, she has been nominated a number of times, but is yet to win an award.

Another memorable and popular performance came in 2006 with The Devil Wears Prada. Streep essayed the role of the forbidding Miranda Priestly flawlessly, but the award went to Helen Mirren for The Queen.

In 2002, Meryl Streep was part of the trinity of women in Stephen Daldry's The Hours. Streep played the role of Clarissa, which is loosely based on the protagonist of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, the novel that inspired the movie. Streep was not even nominated for this role, while her fellow actress, Nicole Kidman won the award for the same film.

Last year, Streep appeared in the musical Mamma Mia along with Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and a few others. Speaking of music, few people know that she replaced Madonna for the Oscar nominated role in Music of the Heart.

This year, Meryl Streep's 15th Oscar nomination comes for Doubt where she plays a Catholic nun. While most commentators have predicted a win for Kate Winslet, Streep's chances of winning look increasingly strong.