 Greater success came later in 1982 , when Streep starred in the drama Sophie 's Choice ( 1982 ) , portraying a Polish holocaust survivor caught in a love triangle between a young naive writer ( Peter MacNicol ) and a Jewish intellectual ( Kevin Kline ) . Streep 's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise . William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the role of Sophie , but Streep was determined to get the role . She obtained a bootlegged copy of the script , and threw herself on the ground begging the director Alan J. Pakula to give her the role . Streep filmed the " choice " scene in one take and refused to do it again , finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting . Emma Brockes of The Guardian believes the scene in which Streep is ordered by an SS guard at Auschwitz to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp , is her most famous scene , remarking : " It 's classic Streep , the kind of scene that makes your scalp tighten , but <unk> in a way is her handling of smaller , harder @-@ to @-@ grasp emotions " . Among several notable acting awards , Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance , and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere magazine . Roger Ebert said of her delivery , " Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish @-@ American accent ( she has the first accent I 've ever wanted to hug ) , and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish . There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn 't touch in this movie , and yet we 're never aware of her straining . This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine . " Pauline Kael on the contrary called the film an " infuriatingly bad movie " and thought that Streep " <unk> " herself , which she believed explained why her movie heroines " don 't seem to be full characters , and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her " . 
