'It must have killed him,' says Streep of P.L. Travers' (Emma Thompson) strong hand in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins film.

"Emma thinks: 'Is this helpful?' Not, 'Will it build my brand?' Not, 'Will it give me billions?' Not, 'Does this express me? Me! Me! My unique and fabulous self, into all eternity in every universe for all time? Will I get a sequel out of it, or a boat? Or a perfume contract?'" she said.

Streep also read "An Ode to Emma, Or What Emma is Owed", to which Thompson responded: "Bloody hell, Meryl. What greater love hath no woman, really, that she should don a frock and heels for her friend, write a poem. My god, I'm nauseous with gratitude!"

But Streep adopted a more serious tone earlier in her speech when she claimed Disney "was supposedly a hideous anti-Semite".

"Disney, who brought joy, arguably, to billions of people, was perhaps, or had some … racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobby. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company's policies, a gender bigot," she said.