WITH a record-breaking 14 Oscar nominations - as well as countless other acting honours - to her name, Meryl Streep knows a thing or two about award ceremony etiquette.

But, even though she's head-to-head with Kate Winslet at most of this year's award bun-fights, she refuses to be drawn on Kate's tear-tastic debacle at the Golden Globes.

"I don't have any tips for anyone in that position," she frowns. "You're out of your own body in that moment when they call your name. So I think everybody makes a fool of themselves in their own way.

"The ones who are the happiest are the ones who are sitting home laughing `Look at them. Oh man!'. It's a beautiful position, to be on the couch just watching," she says, fixing me with what feels decidedly like a withering look.

"But it's hard to manage your emotions, that's all."

Nor is she terribly keen to indulge me - or, I suspect, anyone - with idle speculation about the likely outcome of any of the upcoming awards ceremonies.

"I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear you're not the only person to ask me that question," she offers, before favouring me with a smile nonetheless.

"I have to say it's just so much more fun to publicise a film in July. Because you talk about the film, you don't talk about the horse race, which is almost like a different thing altogether.

Jockeying

"It has to do with marketing and jockeying between studios and campaigns. It's a political thing. Having said, that I think Kate Winslet is great. I'm glad she wasn't in three movies this year."

Phew. I think I got away with that then and she's even offered me a way into talking a bit about Mamma Mia!, which was the film she was publicising in July, when we last met.

Had she been at all surprised by the sheer scale of that film's success? The feelgood movie, based on the the hit musical inspired by the songs of Abba, has, after all, taken in excess of £400m worldwide and smashed box office records, allegedly overtaking Titanic and Harry Potter to become the highest-grossing release of all time in the UK.

"No, I knew it would do well because it was aimed at an audience that has been neglected in recent years in film offerings, which is women. They are the last group anybody ever cares about.

"I know the studio is gobsmacked by its success and a lot of the critics have been surprised but I wasn't. It was a no-brainer. I know there has been talk of a sequel, so, yes, you might be seeing me doing that again."

The film Streep is here to talk about, Doubt, is a long way from the feelgood shenanigans, sun-kissed romance and songs of Mamma Mia! It's a heavyweight drama about moral dilemmas, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by John Patrick Shanley, who also directs this film version.

Streep, 59, stars as Sister Aloysius, the steely principal of a Catholic school in 1960s New York who suspects a priest of child abuse and is, apparently, ready to wreck a life without a shred of evidence beyond her own determination that she is in the right.

'Dragons'

"I loved the play and I knew that there were a whole lot of interpretations you could have of Sister Aloysius, which, of course, is great if you're an actress.

"People have said they see parallels between this character and the ruthless character I play in The Manchurian Candidate or Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.

"I don't really see that, although they're similarly women in power, they're dragons of a sort. I think we're still accommodating ourselves to the idea of women leaders, we just don't feel that comfortable with that in today's society - still.

"You know, there's a bit of me in all of these characters. I think I'm right there if anybody cares to look. I'm even there in the rabbi in Angels in America, via my father.

"But the really freeing thing about playing a nun and about their lives, which I investigated a bit through meeting them, is that you throw away everything that women normally waste a great number of hours of the day on - what you're going to wear, how your hair looks, the state of disarray of your face!

"All you are is what you do and maybe that's the way all of us should be. It was very, very liberating and sort of spiritual if I may use that word."

Doubt is on general release from February 6.