One is considered the greatest actress of her generation; the other is American cinema’s most enchating “It” girl. But any notion that one is on the downward trajectory of her career while the other flies high is demolished by the sheer resilience and ambition of Meryl Streep’s recent career choices.

Streep, whose first all-out musical, Mamma Mia!, opened July 18, will be seen in two films with the effervescent Amy Adams in the coming year: Doubt, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play by John Patrick Shanley, and Julie and Julia, in which Streep plays the indomitable Julia Child to Adams’ food-blogging Queens housewife who cooks her way through Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking. While they don’t share any scenes in the latter film, they act as kindred culinary spirits.

Asked if she had learned anything working with Streep, Adams doesn’t hesitate. “I learned that I will never be Meryl Streep,” she says in all sincerity.

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