Man thanks to Alvaro for sending in scans from the January issue of the UK Empire magazine, they’re running a “Tory Story” on “The Iron Lady”. The most interesting part of this article is that the film still isn’t ready yet – the one shown to the press and at screenings for now was an unfinished version. I guess they’re getting the final stitches just in time for its release. Scans can be found in the image library.
“There’s a flicker board of events really in the ’80s,” says screenwriter Abi Morgan. “You have that decade where she did everything. She stood up against the miners, against the IRA, she led us to war, led us out of war, she kicked us in the nuts, then redeemed us… My memories were very much of the handbag and the beautiful blue suit and the sense of the contradiction of the time: that there was so much sexism around, yet the country was being led by a woman. That made her a very intriguing figur.” It helps if you have an icon to play an icon, and here The Iron Lady has a golden girl to play a true blue: Meryl Streep. “You need a superstar to play Thatcher. You need someone of extraordinary magnetismn and charisma,” insists Phyllida Lloyd, who also points to Streep’s presence as an American in a very English story as an asset when shooting. “Meryl was an outsider, just as Thatcher was.”