Jessica Chastain recalls 'very embarrassing moment' meeting Meryl Streep

Jessica Chastain subscribes to the belief that you should never meet your idols.

While visiting with James Corden on "The Late Late Show" alongside Penelope Cruz on Wednesday, the two-time Oscar nominee recounted meeting Meryl Streep.

"I had a very embarrassing moment with Meryl Streep, to be honest," Chastain said. "I had a terrible, terrible, awkward — I just want to save everyone the awkwardness of me being like, 'I don't know what to do with myself.' I really feel so uncomfortable. I was doing a play in New York. I came off stage, and everyone's there in the lobby. I was with my friend, and I was like, 'Is that Meryl Streep?'"

She continued: "And then she turns and looks at me, and everything starts to kind of go crazy in my head. She walks towards me, like we know each other, and then she says, 'Jessica, you were so wonderful in this play.' And I literally — I didn't even know how to function. I said, 'Thank you so much. It means so much to me that you came. Buh-bye.' And I walked away."

Cruz also admitted that Streep is the one person that makes her nervous and starstruck.

"I am obsessed with her, and she knows it," the Oscar winner admitted. "Every time I see her — the first time I was shy, but then she was very affectionate, so then I learned that. Every time I see her after that, I hug her and kiss her a thousand times."

This comes around the same time Chastain shared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that her grandmother sat on Bradley Cooper's lap during one of her parties. Watch both segments below.