Vanessa Williams says her portrayal of Miranda Priestly in the The Devil Wears Prada musical is far from a Meryl Streep impression.
“I am a different person,” Williams, 61, told The Sunday Times in an interview published on Sunday, November 10.
Miranda Priestly is the formidable editor-in-chief of the fictitious fashion magazine Runway, a role popularized by Streep, 75, in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada based on Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel of the same name.
Williams, for her part, played a similar character in the early 2000s, having portrayed Willhelmina Slater, editor-in-chief of fictional magazine Mode, on ABC’s Ugly Betty from 2006 to 2010. “I have fans asking me if Wilhelmina will be coming on stage. But it will be my own thing,” Williams insisted. “Yes, Mode and Runway are very similar, and the power of these two women is very similar. But it’s a different world.”
According to Williams, the Broadway musical adaptation is set in 2005 and its tone will not cater to modern-day sensibilities. “We are not making it contemporary — we are not making it woke,” she told The Times. “The way Miranda acts would get you canceled nowadays.”
In an interview with ABC News earlier this year, Williams shared that the musical will still feature some of the film’s most iconic lines, including the phrase “That’s all,” which Williams sings in her first number, titled “The House of Miranda.”
“I channel Miranda through the dialogue [from the movie],” she told ABC News in July. “A lot of the dialogue is actually taken from the actual film. So what you’ll hear me do on stage is the dialogue that people know and love and have memorized.”
She added, “Devil Wears Prada is a perfect movie and that’s why it has legs and stands the test of time. This is yet another step to take something that is perfect and bring it into another genre and make it spectacular.”
As for the woman who inspired all of these characters, Vogue’s real-life editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Williams told The Sunday Times in November that she met the fashion editor once at the Met Gala in 2009 and that their paths have crossed more than once at the US Open.
“She does wear the glasses all the time,” Williams said of Wintour, who is also a fellow tennis fan. “I don’t know if they are prescription or not. The last time I saw her there she was texting Serena Williams while we were watching. I think she genuinely has friends. Obviously, she has her favorites, for sure.”
