Meet Meryl Streep And Don Gummer's 4 Kids

Meryl Streep and Don Gummer are parents to four children: One son and three daughters. Henry, Mamie, Grace, and Louisa are all interesting and talented individuals who, like their parents, have a creative streak. While Streep and Gummer's daughters have followed in their mom's footsteps, their son shares similarities with his sculptor father. "My brother is more like my dad ... more solitary," Mamie Gummer said in 2016, per Irish Independent. "He'll go into his studio and write music all day."

The Gummer kids grew up away from the limelight and were protected from the media. But now, a few of them are willing to open up their lives with the public and share who they are as they make a name for themselves away from their parents' fame. In fact, Louisa even changed her last name to Jacobson to carve her own path in the entertainment world. 

Raising children is no easy task, and Streep has been open and honest about the difficulties of motherhood. When asked whether acting or motherhood was more challenging, the "Mamma Mia!" actor told The Washington Post in a 1998 interview, "Mothering. Definitely." She explained that children "don't even say, 'Thank you.' They don't even clear the table unless you say, 'Excuuuse me.' Real life, there's no comparison to acting." Without further ado, meet Meryl Streep and Don Gummer's adult children.

Meryl Streep is a celebrated actor, but even her most diehard fans didn't get a front-row seat to her children's lives. This decision was deliberate, as Streep and Don Gummer raised their kids away from the spotlight. The actor discussed this decision in an interview with Good Housekeeping in 2008, noting how Robert Redford's comments had inspired her choice.

Redford's lesson was simple: "'They are not your props,'" Streep recalled him saying. "I really admired the way he protected his family. It's something I consciously emulated." The media didn't hound Streep's kids, but they were still exposed to the entertainment industry from a young age. In an interview with Working Mother (via Women Working), she further discussed balancing motherhood with her work. "I was lucky that I married a good man because that made it so much easier to be able to work, even though I would take my children on the set with me when they were very young," Streep said.

Her third child, daughter Grace Gummer, has positive memories of this time, at least according to Julia Roberts. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Roberts recalled a conversation with Gummer about having a famous mom. "I asked, 'How old were you when you realized your mom was Meryl Streep?' She said, 'I think I was probably 9 when I put that all together.' I said, 'Were you cool with it?' She said, 'Yeah, it was fine. There was no trauma.'"

Henry Wolfe Gummer is Meryl Steep and Don Gummer's eldest child. He was born on November 13, 1979. His talents were apparent early on, as Streep recalled in an interview with Mom in 2016. "I had a child who, at 3, would go to the piano, reach up and play. I said we have to get him music lessons," she said. In the following years, when Henry lost his love of piano and wanted to stop his lessons, his parents let him quit.

However, Streep later realized how valuable perseverance is. "Now, cut to age 35, and he is a musician. Self-taught and late in life, he came to it. I keep thinking if he had stayed with it ... You know, a little bit of 'tiger mom' is a good thing," she said. "Sometimes you have to make them do things they don't want to do."

Though Henry dabbled in acting, he ultimately chose music, which has brought him more joy. "For me, music was more stimulating from day to day. It was something that I didn't need to be working on a project to practice," he told The New York Daily News (via People). "I can do it whenever, and I get satisfaction from completing songs that I never really got from acting." Still, he loves the performative aspect of being a musician. "Playing music with other people in front of an audience is just fun," he told HuffPost in 2016.

Henry Wolfe Gummer pursued his passions and became a musician, and now he has advice for others who want to do the same. In an interview with HuffPost in 2016, he was asked to share his wisdom for up-and-coming young talents, and he responded, "No music is uncool. The music that meant most to me when I was young (like in grade school) continues to inform my songwriting." He gave an example of how he listened to Sting as a child and how many other bands he liked impacted his sound. "Bands I listened to when I was in grade school continue to influence the melodies, and sounds that I'm drawn to," he said. 

The list of other artists who inspire him is long and diverse, including big names like Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Sting and the Police, and Peter Gabriel. And speaking of icons, the success of his mother, Meryl Streep, has also been something Henry has had to contend with. "The fact that my mom is who she is can be overshadowing," he told the New York Daily News (via People). "Sometimes I worry that my story isn't good enough. Sure, my mom is part of the story, and I don't get pissed when people ask me about her, but I wish I had something that could eclipse that as far as compelling storylines."

Mamie Gummer is the second child of Meryl Streep and Don Gummer and was born on August 3, 1983. Like her mother, she was also bitten by the acting bug. But following in her mom's footsteps has had its challenges. In a 2008 interview with New York Magazine, Mamie called it "a blessing and a curse. It gets you in the door, but it doesn't get you the role." Mamie made a similar statement in an interview with Vogue in 2016. "It was hard in some ways, because of my background, I received a lot of attention that I had to learn to be comfortable with," she said. 

Mamie has had the chance to star alongside Streep several times, starting as early as the 1986 film "Heartburn" when she was just 20 months old. Both actors were both cast in the 2007 film, "Evening," with Mamie playing a younger version of her mom's character. And though they didn't share any scenes, it wasn't something Streep was sad about. As she told Good Housekeeping in 2008, "Maybe that was for the best." 

As adults, they appeared together in the 2015 film, "Ricki and The Flash." And Streep is incredibly supportive of Mamie and believes she has talent. ​​'She's brave and fearless and funny and free. She's a free talent," Streep said at the "Ricki and the Flash" premiere in 2015, per AZ Central. "It doesn't have any cover-up — she's the real deal.”

Mamie Gummer is a mother to one child with her now-husband, Mehar Sethi. Their son was born in February 2019. Becoming a mother has likely impacted her life in many ways, but she's chosen to keep these private. And it's always been this way, even in her childhood home. "As you can imagine, we were private almost to the point of occasionally being antagonistic to outsiders," she said in a 2012 interview with Purple. "[Home] was a really guarded and sort of sacred place."

Mamie does not post publicly about her son, and very little information is known about him. But his birth was also significant for her mom Meryl Streep because it marked her transition into a grandmother.

"I've been working like mad for quite a while, so I'm getting ready for my first grandchild," "The Devil Wears Prada" actor said in a chat with Glenda Jackson for Interview Magazine in 2019. "My daughter's having a baby in February, so I'm going to go out and ruin her life. I specialize in unsolicited advice." Streep and Don Gummer now have several grandchildren.

Meryl Streep and Don Gummer's third child is Grace Gummer. She was born on May 9, 1986. She has a creative side and is an actor, but she also has a formal education, which her mother pushed for.

"I wanted them to follow their own dreams, but I did ask them to have a plan B," Streep told Working Mother (via HuffPost). "They made their own way. Grace studied art history and Italian, for example. But I was more worried about how their lives would be possibly disrupted or made more complicated by the media attention that now follows every young actor." She added, "I never had to deal with that when I was their age."

Grace attended Vassar, the same school as her mom, and graduated in 2008. Streep graduated back in 1971. "I was interested in theater and drama but didn't consider acting as a post-college pursuit per se," Grace said, per Vassar. "Life was simpler at Vassar. I just studied whatever I wanted and what I was interested in without the idea of it foreshadowing a career path."

Grace Gummer has found love with music producer Mark Ronson. The couple married in September 2021, and Ronson posted a picture of their wedding day on Instagram. "To my truest love ... out of nowhere, you made 45 hands down the greatest year of my life," he captioned the photo. "And I'm sure it took me 45 years to become the man worthy of your love. I hope I spend every one of these birthdays by your side til my last day. And beyond. Forever and ever yours. (and yes, we got married)."

Ronson has made no secret of his affection for his wife. In August 2022, celebrating their anniversary, he once again posted pictures of himself and Grace on Instagram. "When people used to tell me their spouse was their best friend, I thought they were spouting Hallmark nonsense or that they were some freak anomaly of love," he wrote in the caption. "So now I guess I'm either someone who spouts Hallmark nonsense or I'm a freak anomaly of love. Or maybe I just married the most incredible human being around."

In 2023, the couple celebrated the birth of their first child, a girl. "[Gummer] just had the baby. She's two and a half months now," Ronson's sister Annabelle Dexter-Jones told People. "She's stunning."

Grace Gummer isn't afraid to push boundaries and go outside her comfort zone for an acting performance. One example of this was her appearance in the 2022 horror series, "Let the Right One In." She appears in 10 episodes as the character Claire Logan, a character that she was surprisingly drawn to.

"The horror genre isn't really my thing," she told WWD. "But when I read it, I was like, 'Oh, this is something completely different. It's actually really interesting, and it's a lot deeper, and there's no gratuitous violence in it." She explained, "It feels like it's much more sort of accessible and relatable."

Of course, some roles are more challenging than others, and Grace acknowledges that she can't always just snap out of them. "Putting myself into that dark place is something I have to warm up to do and warm down to get rid of," she told W Magazine in 2022. "It can definitely stay with you in little ways throughout the day when you don't realize." Gummer may be willing to discuss her career openly, but she likes to keep her personal life out of the spotlight. "I don't know that there ever was a decision to be private," she said in an interview with W magazine. "I just tend to be this way."

Louisa Jacobson is the fourth child of Meryl Streep and Don Gummer. She was born on June 12, 1991. As of 2023, she is enjoying success as an actor thanks to her role in the HBO series, "The Gilded Age." In it, she plays one of the lead roles as Marian Brooke. Jacobson always knew she wanted to pursue acting, although she did explore other studies before giving it her full attention. "My youngest child — well, she's not a child, she's 27 years old — is in her last year of drama school," Meryl Streep said in a chat with Glenda Jackson for Interview Magazine in 2019. "Things have changed so much." Like her older sister and mother, Jacobson is also a graduate of Vassar. She later attended the Yale School of Drama for three years.

Jacobson told Tatler in 2022 that she "did theatre from a very young age." She also reflected on her acting journey in an interview with "Jimmy Kimmel Live." "I acted when I was a kid [and] all throughout high school, middle school ... did something different in college, and yeah, when I graduated, I worked a retail job for a little bit, and then I worked at an ad agency," she shared.

There is a notable difference in Louisa Jacobson's last name from her siblings', because uses it to set herself apart from her famous family.

"I wanted to forge my own path and try different things," she said in an interview with Into The Gloss on why she didn't immediately start acting. She also explained that facing comparisons with her mom could make her second guess herself. "It's going to be a constant thing throughout my life," Jacobson told Tatler. "It has been since I can remember — this issue of 'Do I deserve what I have?'" Luckily, the actor overcame these feelings of doubt to pursue her dream, and she told the outlet that it was helpful to remember other stars like Jane Fonda and Sofia Coppola had done it before her. The key to moving forward? Avoiding social media. "I think it just takes time and not reading Twitter and just focusing on what I want to achieve as an artist," she said.

Her sister, Mamie Gummer, made similar comments to ABC News in 2015. "I remember trying to kind of fly under the radar when I first got out of school. And I went to general casting meetings, like at soap operas," Mamie said, adding that her mother's fame "does sort of precede every door that I walk into in this way."

Meryl Streep's acting skills have definitely been passed on to her children, Henry Gummer, Mamie Gummer, Grace Gummer, and Louisa Jacobson, and in 2023, they joined together for a production of "Three Sisters" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Kristjan Thor directed the play by Anton Chekhov, and it was one of the festival's main events. And who better to cast than real-life sisters?

Louisa was excited about the event and informed fans of the project via Instagram in August 2023. She posted a bunch of pictures of the cast, including photos of her sisters on stage and one of her brother playing guitar. "This past weekend my brother, two sisters, and I acted together for the first time ever," she wrote in the caption. The actor went on to describe the experience as "imperfect, beautiful, full of love, joy, anxiety and existential dread — a Chekhovian drama in and of itself." Her caption also made it clear that she cherished the experience. "[I] wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I love them so much," she wrote.