Meryl Streep has claimed The Devil Wears Prada had to "scrabble" for funding because it was viewed as a "chick flick".

The 76-year-old actress - who reprises her role as Miranda Priestly in the upcoming sequel - recalled how hard it was for the David Frankel-directed adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's novel to pull together a budget because of how the genre was seen to studios.

Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she said: "Twenty years ago, it was categorised as a 'chick flick,' and that designation has kind of not worn well after Barbie and Mamma Mia!--to throw that in--and other films that completely catch the studios by surprise that people want to see them, because they have girls in the center of the story, women in the center of the story.

"So, we had to scrabble for our budget. And that was true.

"I've talked to Greta [Gerwig] about it, that was true with Barbie a little bit, in comparison with what they spend on other films."

But after the 2006 movie earned more than $326 million around the world, there were no such problems when making the sequel.

Meryl quipped: "This one, honey, they spent the money."

While Vogue's legendary editor Anna Wintour is widely regarded as the inspiration for Meryl's character Miranda, the veteran actress explained how she drew on two directors to inform her portrayal.

She said: "If Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood had a baby, it would be Miranda Priestly.

"Because [of] just the command on the set. Mike would do it sort of with a sly humour, and Miranda knows what she's saying is kind of snide, but she knows it's kind of funny, too.

"And calm, because Clint never would raise his voice. He would direct, and people would have to lean forward to hear what he was saying."

Meryl recently praised co-star Anne Hathaway for requesting no "skeletal" models were used in The Devil Wears Prada 2.

She told Harper's Bazaar magazine: "[I was] struck by how not only beautiful and young - everyone seems young to me - but alarmingly thin the models were … I thought that all had been addressed years ago. Annie clocked it too.

"And she made a beeline to the producers about it, securing promises that the models in the show that we were putting together for our film would not be so skeletal! She's a stand-up girl."

And Meryl was also impressed with how Anne handled the attention when they were filming in public.

She said: "Even though we were aware of the impact of the first film two decades ago, I think none of us were prepared for the ambush of both goodwill and avid attention that engulfed us.

"We needed police barriers and crowd control. Buses of fans turned up, and paparazzi swarmed and, in one case, kept jumping in front of the camera and the shot and got in a kerfuffle with crew!

"Annie kept her cool, but I was unnerved."