Meryl Streep: What She Won't Do at the Oscars

Acting legend talks Into the Woods

There's one thing you won't be seeing Meryl Streep doing at the Oscars—singing!

In the upcoming movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, Streep sings a song specifically written for the film by the show's legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

If nominated for an Academy Award, Streep could be asked to belt it on the big night.

"Over my dead body," the acting legend says about singing at the Oscars.

Darn it!

Streep, who I caught up with at the L.A. premiere of her new drama August: Osage County (in theaters on Dec. 27), did ask Sondheim to sign an original music manuscript for the song. "He said, 'Sure,' and he wrote, 'Don't f--k it up,'" Streep said, laughing.

Into the Woods, which weaves together several fairy-tale characters for an original story about a baker and his wife trying to start family, opened on Broadway in 1987 and went on to win three Tonys, including one for Sondheim for Best Original Score.

Directed by Rob Marshall, the film stars Streep as The Witch, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella with Chris Pine as her Prince and Johnny Depp as The Wolf.

"I'm so excited to play the big bad Wolf," Depp told me whole promoting The Lone Ranger in June. "That kind of thing is sort of a dream come true. The deal is, once again it's Sondheim, who's amazing, but when you're not a crack vocalist, it's quite complicated stuff that he writes."

Depp previously starred in the big-screen version of Sondheim's Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.