OSCAR winning actress Meryl Streep will lend her good name, and her physical presence, to Belfast's Metropolitan Arts Center in an effort to help the establishment make up a 1.2 million funding shortfall. Meryl will be in London filming, and she's due to arrive in Belfast on August 18, according to media reports.

"The importance of the arts to the identity of a society is incalculable. The OMAC has been a clinic for the imaginative good that heals the soul with the healing power of art," she said in a statement. "This is why OMAC is a cause for celebration and a template for hope."

Streep will be the guest of honor at a gala fundraiser, and in a real coup, she might even teach an acting masterclass.