Meryl Streep had to prove she was sexy to director Sydney Pollack before she landed a role in Oscar-winning film Out of Africa - so she stuffed her bra.
The award-winning actress was in her mid-30's when she starred opposite Robert Redford in the 1985 love story, based on a Danish author's memoir of her life in Kenya.
Streep admits she was desperate to land the part and devised a plan to entice the director after discovering he had dubbed her undesirable.
She says, "I did this thing once when I was auditioning for Out of Africa because I had done some movies but I wasn't famous enough to get this big part. The director at of the film, Sydney Pollack, let it be known to my agent at the time he didn't think I was sexy enough to play Isak Dinesen, the Danish writer who was like 50 when she published her first book. So I went and got a sweet little dress at my local (discount retailer) K-Mart. It went off the shoulders, and I took a lot of paper towels and I stuffed my bra, so it would mound up. Yeah (it worked) I got the part.