Meryl Streep doubled her Devil Wears Prada salary demand in 2006 and got it

Meryl Streep’s “pay me double or I’m out” moment in 2006 was not a vibe. It was a negotiation. In a recent interview with Today, the three-time Oscar winner said she was low-balled when the call came to star as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, and she responded by saying no at first. Streep then made the key move: she read the script, believed the film would land, and tested whether she could raise the offer by “doubling” her ask. She said they “went right away and said, sure,” and she framed it as a lesson in realizing what she could command.

That’s the part founders and execs should pay attention to: Streep was already mid-50s with millions in the bank and two Oscars. Her leverage was not just talent. It was risk management. If they didn’t meet her ask, she was ready to walk away. She told Today she felt “ready to retire,” and her “it took me this long to understand that I could do that” comment lands because it reveals the true logic of the moment. When you are willing to leave, the price stops being theoretical. It becomes a decision.

The movie industry, like most industries with specialized talent, runs on incentives that can quietly drift. Studios want to control costs and reduce uncertainty, while stars want to price not only the work but the risk of being tied to a project. Streep’s story is basically a reminder that negotiations are not just about money. They are about who bears the uncertainty and who has optionality. In Streep’s case, she had optionality. She wasn’t bargaining from desperation. She was bargaining from preparedness.

And the payoff was immediate. The Devil Wears Prada went on to gross over $326 million worldwide, which is exactly the kind of outcome that turns a salary line item into an argument for bargaining power. Streep earned her 14th Oscar nomination through the film’s success, and Miranda Priestly became one of cinema’s most iconic characters. The sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, hit theaters last month and has already more than doubled that gross, bringing in $660 million and counting. Translation: the initial negotiation wasn’t about “getting lucky.” It was about reading the probability of impact and then pricing for it.

Streep then did something that matters for anyone on a board or in finance: she didn’t retreat after winning a negotiation. She kept stacking major work. The source notes that instead of retiring, she went on to have what it calls “the biggest chapter” of her career, including Mamma Mia!, Julie & Julia, and The Iron Lady, the latter landing her a third Oscar. It also lists career stats that show the scale of her market value: Streep has starred in over 64 films and holds the record for the most Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations of any performer in history. So her “ready to retire” posture did not end her career. It arguably extended it by forcing better terms earlier.

This theme is not unique to film, and Fortune’s story explicitly connects it to finance and publishing. It points to Suze Orman, a self-made millionaire, who experienced a similar reckoning. In the late 1990s, when bidding for Orman’s second book, The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, reached $800,000, Orman told her literary agent to stop, even as offers climbed toward a million and a half. Orman previously told Fortune that if somebody pays her that much money to write a book, she would get “sick to my stomach,” and that she didn’t want more than $800,000. Looking back, she said the reason was simple: “I didn’t think I was worth it.” That is the mirror image of Streep’s lesson, framed around internal worth rather than external pricing.

Orman’s story then widens the incentive map. In 1998, she was offered a spot on The Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about the spiritual side of divorce, but Orman felt it wasn’t her area of expertise and became the first person ever to turn down the appearance, according to the producer. Then, just months later, she pushed back against Random House over the title of her third book. She told her manager at the time, “Break my contract,” and “I refuse to write a book for them.” In the end, Riverhead Books published the book in 1999 under her chosen title, The Courage to be Rich. It became a New York Times bestseller, and Orman appeared on The Oprah Show 29 times. The through-line is clear: saying no preserved her identity and positioned her to capture upside on her terms.

For executives thinking beyond Hollywood, the most practical section in the source comes next: how to ask for a pay rise in the real economy, where the stakes are still personal but your “doubling your ask” script is not as immediate. Fortune includes advice from Sophia Procter, a former blue-chip company manager, who said asking for a pay rise because you feel you work hard or deserve more money “does not demonstrate why the company should further invest in you.” Instead, she recommended looking at job adverts for similar roles, speaking with recruiters to find market expectations at your level, and then documenting how your work benefited company growth, such as client feedback and sales you generated. From there, Procter says you can quantify value and add an estimated $6,000-$19,000 representing the approximate cost to employers to find your replacement, depending on experience. It’s a numbers-first way to make your ask legible to a finance team.

The second-order implication for boards and senior operators is that compensation negotiations, like these stories, are not just about personal satisfaction. They are about signaling. When high-signal talent sets a boundary, it can reset how the market prices that talent and how the organization understands replacement risk. And when internal culture rewards evidence-based requests, you reduce the chance of “lowball drift” that leaves companies paying more later, in higher salaries, higher attrition costs, or both. Streep’s 2006 story and Orman’s late-1990s pushback are separated by industries, but the incentive engine is the same: optionality plus clarity changes the outcome.