Donald Trump told THR 'Meryl Streep is excellent' in 2015 interview

Donald Trump was quick to fire back at Meryl Streep on Sunday after her powerful Golden Globes speech, partly directed at the president-elect. But in 2015, he named the award-winner as one of his favorite actresses.

During Streep's speech accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the actress called out Trump's recent "performance," referring to the moment when the president-elect mocked The New York Times' Serge Kovaleski, a disabled reporter. "There was nothing good about it, but it did its job," she said. "I still can't get it out my head because it wasn't in a movie; it was in real life. That instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in a public platform, it filters down into everyone's life because it gives permission for others to do the same."

Trump fired back, calling her a "Hillary lover" and "over-rated," but in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter during the Republican primary season, Trump was asked to name actresses he liked. He could only name two, and Streep was one of them.

See photos from the Golden Globes red carpet:

Read more: The Donald Trump Conversation: Murdoch, Ailes, NBC and the Rush of Being TV's "Ratings Machine"

Asked during the interview if there were any actresses in particular he loved, Trump answered: "Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others. Meryl Streep is excellent; she's a fine person, too. The problem is I'll name three or four or five and then the hundred that I know will be insulted, and I don't mean to insult them."

Trump had initially fired back at Streep on Sunday night after the speech aired, telling The New York Times that Streep must be a "Hillary lover" and though he hadn't watched the speech, he wasn't "surprised" that the actress and her fellow "liberal movie people" took their aim at him during the Globes.

In a series of tweets in the early morning hours, Trump called Streep "one of most over-rated actresses in Hollywood," adding that the actress "attacked" him in her speech and denied that he had ever mocked a disabled reporter.

Read more: Critic's Notebook: Donald Trump Takes Aim at Meryl Streep — and We All Lose