Selena Gomez sobs seeing Meryl Streep working flawlessly

At a For Your Consideration event in Los Angeles on Thursday, the cast and creators of Only Murders in the Building got back together and discussed the hot issue of the third season: Meryl Streep.

At the Academy Museum, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Michael Cyril Creighton, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and showrunner John Hoffman were there for a screening and discussion conducted by moderator Judd Apatow. Streep was supposed to attend as well, but she became ill with the flu.

In what Apatow said was the sexiest performance of Short’s career, Loretta, Streep’s new character, starts a love involvement with Oliver Putnam, played by Short, in season three.

“I will tell you honestly, I’ve known Meryl a little bit through the years but on the first day of shooting, I was a little unusually nervous for me, because I was thinking, ‘I’m doing a two-person scene with Meryl Streep,’” Short told the crowd.

After shooting a scene at the piano, the two went into a side holding area, “and Meryl said to me, ‘OK, so my nerves are now down to half.’ So I guess she was nervous working with me,” he teased.

The season centres on a musical that Oliver is directing, in which Streep appears multiple times. Gomez recalled, “I literally cried at Meryl just rehearsing. I thought it was so beautiful” and Short added that “everyone was sobbing” off camera as she sang.

When shooting her main onstage performance, “we were up against it for time and we needed to let her go. We got everything on her and then we reverse the cameras to get the reactions of everyone. We said, ‘Meryl, thank you so much, this was amazing,’” Hoffman remembered. “And she said, ‘Well, wait a minute, are you getting the reactions?’ And I said, ‘Yes, but it’s OK, that was 12 or 14 times you did it.’ And she said, ‘No, no, let me stay.’ And she performed it full out over and over again after that, only for the reactions from the crowd.”

“I remember sitting there thinking it is true, I guess, Meryl Streep can be really effective,” Short deadpanned, as Martin added, “Given the chance.”