Meryl Streep on learning her 'Florence' lines: 'My memory is crap now'

NEW YORK, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep admits she didn't have her dialogue memorized when she first arrived on the set of Florence Foster Jenkins.

Asked at a press conference Tuesday how she quells the nerves of co-stars who are timid about working with her, Streep replied: "It goes away very quickly because I never can remember what I am supposed to say."

"Thankfully, Hugh [Grant] had all my lines down pat, so he could tell me..." Streep began to say before her co-star interrupted with, "Did I?"

"Yes! [He'd say,] 'You don't say that there.' 'Oh, I don't?'" she laughed.

"How annoying! Did I say that? Well, I did love it when you forgot your lines on the first day. I've never been happier, really," Grant informed her.

"I used to remember them really good and then people were really afraid of me. My memory is crap now," the 67-year-old actress confessed.

The film is to open in U.S. theaters Friday.