This weekend Meryl Streep will come closer to her 20th Oscar nomination as her latest film "Florence Foster Jenkins" debuts in theaters to stunning reviews.

The film tells the real life story of a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice. The film marks the third time Streep plays a real life character in the past 10 years. She last played Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron lady" for which she won the Academy Award and Julia Child in "Julie and Julia" for which she was also nominated for the Oscar.

This year her performance is gaining rave reviews and it's not garnering the attention for her great singing like she did for her last Oscar nomination in "Into the Woods". This time Streep will likely get attention for her comic timing for her close proximity to Florence Foster Jenkins' horrible singing.

In the film Streep pulls off arias from Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and Delibes' "Lakme" in Jenkins style. It is not only comic to watch but it is also quite amusing to listen to.

So how did the thespian do it despite having such a stunning voice. According to Streep, during a press conference for the film, it was not difficult to find the terrible voice for the character. "I have a clear understanding of what my voice is. It's like a B voice and I have great friends who are wonderful singers and I know I'll never be able to do that. But singing through a character is something I can do and I liked finding what it was in Florence's recordings because there are recordings that remain very popular."

"She's there for all to hear. It's not just how bad they are but it's how hopeful it is and you hear her breathing in the wrong places. It's sort of lead me to understand her and her exuberance and her will to make it right," she continued.

And it was made all the more fun during the filming process as she found her voice. The scenes where she sings were originally recorded in the studio. However, when they went on set director Stephen Frears decided to have Streep sing making it all the more real and enhancing her performance.

"It was way more fun. It was more terrifying especially in the Carnegie Hall sequence where we shot the audience first just so we could get an honest reaction. We set ourselves to fail really big. So it was like a concert with all these arias which mercifully were not in the film. But the audience got to hear them. So the audience reaction was really their reaction.

So why did Frears decide on this method? "Performance seems so essential to all. Meryl doing it and that was what really mattered. So that was what you wanted to capture. Not some sort of mechanical. Everyone kept saying get them to do it live and I said 'Okay.'"

Frears' intuition definitely served Streep's performance and it is this intuition that has led several of his actors to Oscar nominations. Recently the director has led Judi Dench to two Oscar nominations in "Philomena" and "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and Helen Mirren for "The Queen."

While the film opens early in the Oscar race, it's never too early for Streep and this performance will likely get buzz as the season continues.

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