As seems to be customary at big awards ceremonies these days, the BAFTA host didn't waste any time and opened this year's ceremony by referencing Streep's public spat with President Trump after her passionate speech at the Golden Globes, where she criticised Trump for mocking a disabled reporter.
Fry entered the stage saying, "I look down on row after row of the most overrated people on the planet in their beautiful borrowed evening wear", while Streep was seen laughing at the gag.
"She's one of the greatest actresses of all time - only a blithering idiot would think otherwise," Fry said in his opener.
He then walked down the steps towards the nominees and the audience that had packed into London's Royal Albert Hall, where he said, "Ms Streep, it's tradition here for me to garner a kiss from one of the nominees every year."
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Streep happily placed a kiss on Fry, telling him she was "so thrilled", before he made his way back onstage.
In her speech at the Golden Globes, Streep had slammed the US president and spoke of the importance of diversity.
"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if you kick us all out, you'll have nothing to watch except for football and mixed martial arts, which are not arts. But who are we, and what is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places.
"This instinct to humiliate, when it's modelled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose."