How Meryl Streep Inspired Conor McGregor’s ‘Road House’ Performance

Conor McGregor revealed at the New York premiere of Road House on Tuesday that he sought some unexpected inspiration from Meryl Streep to play villainous Knox in Doug Liman’s remake of the Patrick Swayze classic.

McGregor explained to The Hollywood Reporter that he felt oddly inspired after Streep dissed mixed martial arts and, by extension, UFC fighters at the 2017 Golden Globes. “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners,” Streep said while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award. “And if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”

Streep’s comment was met with thunderous agreement that night, but McGregor disagrees, to say the least. He held onto the remarks for seven years, turning them into a bit of a rallying cry when it came to his first major acting role.

“Fighting is the most beautiful form of art, and you know, it’s a great thing to come into this game (filmmaking), which is also art,” McGregor enthused. “I was really taken aback because fighting is an art,” he said of Streep’s slight.

McGregor admitted feeling annoyed that many people still don’t understand the complicated ballet of MMA. It led to him feeling a bit spurned by the film industry before he even became a part of it.

“It’s brutal also, so I can understand. It’s not for somebody to make a mistake,” he said. “It’s real artistry for those who do what we do, so I came in [to filming Road House] with maybe a little chip on my shoulder and wanting to represent my sport and my art, give my best in this arena.”

Road House has suffered its share of production controversies, with Liman at one point vowing to boycott the film’s SXSW premiere and several lawsuits against Amazon threatening to derail the film’s release. Original star Marshall Teague also shared his view that the remake was “humorous” when compared to the Patrick Swayze original.

So far, though, reviews of the movie have been roundly positive. It premieres on Amazon Prime Video on March 21.