In this video from Monday night’s edition of The Tonight Show, iconic Hollywood actress Meryl Streep speaks about working with lions and playing culinary giant Julia Childs alongside Amy Adams in the new film Julie & Julia, opening Aug. 7.

The movie centers on Adams’ Julie Powell, a 30-year-old housewife from Queens, New York, who famously blogged her attempts to recreate all 524 recipes that appeared in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume One in a single year.