Here’s a little tidbit from an interview with Abi Morgan, who penned the script for “The Iron Lady”, in The Independent. While the article is mostly about the British series “The Hour”, she briefly talks about working with Meryl on “The Iron Lady”.

Another Morgan-penned feature to be released in the new year is The Iron Lady, the hotly anticipated Thatcher biopic starring Meryl Streep. She found the actress to be hugely impressive: “I worked a little with her and she’s just amazing: so finely tuned in decision-making. The great gift of an actress like her is that she’s very down to earth, and true to what she does.”

In its 19/26 issue, Entertainment Weekly has previewed the highlights of the 2011 movie season, and of course, “The Iron Lady” is featured. The scan can be found in the gallery with many thanks to Alvaro!

As mentioned and explained by visitors from the UK before, British newspapers are pro and contra Thatcher, so this might be a reason for such diverse press coverage on “The Iron Lady”, as summarized by the Los Angeles Times: If controversy equals box office, then “The Iron Lady,” Meryl Streep’s Margaret Thatcher biopic, is off to a promising start across the pond. According to a report in the British newspaper the Daily Mail, friends of Thatcher who attended an early screening of the film Saturday were outraged by its portrayal of their former prime minister as power-hungry leading up to and during her administration in the 1980s and conflicted and confused in her senescence. “I didn’t come here to see a film about granny going mad,” one anonymous viewer said of the movie, which is directed by Phyllida Lloyd (“Mamma Mia”) and stars Streep as the Conservative leader and Jim Broadbent as her husband, Denis Thatcher. According to the report, “The Iron Lady” contains scenes of Thatcher suffering nightmares over some of the major victories of her tenure — including the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike that lead to a weakened labor movement in Britain and the 1982 Falklands War — and sacrificing family for ambition. Viewers took particular offense at the depiction of the Thatcher marriage, including a scene in which a pink-turbaned Denis appears in a dream sequence to rail at his wife for her selfishness. Conservative MP Conor Burns told the paper: “Any portrayal of Margaret Thatcher that does not show her as one of the titans of British politics in the 20th Century will be a travesty. The idea that Denis would ever have been cruel to her is twisted and untrue. They were devoted.” Their article continues here.

More insight on Meryl Streep’s preparation to play “The Iron Lady” comes courtesy The Telegraph: Bell Pottinger, the PR company founded by Tim Bell, coached Rebekah Brooks for her appearance before the House of Commons Committee for Culture, Media and Sport last week. But Brooks’s unconvincing performance was not in the same league as Lord Bell’s first PR triumph – Margaret Thatcher. With the late Sir Gordon Reece, he moulded Baroness Thatcher’s public persona – down to the bouffant hairdo and pearls. This is why the producers of The Iron Lady, scheduled for release next January, signed up Stephen Sherbourne, until recently Lord Bell’s right-hand man, to help Meryl Streep with her portrayal of Lady T. Sherbourne said there was little to add to the actress’s extraordinary insight into her subject: Miss Streep had read a great deal about the former PM, knew about the workings of Parliament and was in superb command of her brief. If only the same could be said of Rebekah Brooks.

Fantastic news! According to Pathe, we’ll be able to get a first look at the highly anticipated “The Iron Lady” teaser trailer when it goes live exclusively on The Guardian website and on BBC Breakfast after 8:30am on July 7. Be sure to find it on Simply Streep as well, after its broadcast. Edit: The teaser – which is running for roughly a minute – can be now watched in the video archive.

Many thanks to Simona for contributing scans from the July 2011 issue of the Italian CIAK magazine. They’re covering “The Iron Lady”.

Pathe Productions Ltd. has released a brand new production still from “The Iron Lady” – it’s stunning how much Meryl resembles Margaret Thatcher. Check it out in the image library.

The Weinstein Company has released its list of releases for their upcoming films. “The Iron Lady” will release US theaters on December 16, 2011 – just in time to compete for the 2012 awards season. Other international dates so far are January 06 in the UK and January 12 in Germany.

Additional on-set pictures from “The Iron Lady”, taken in March 2011, have been added to the gallery. Enjoy!

Article courtesy the Daily Mail: Ever since I was the first to see footage of Meryl Streep’s incredible portrait of Margaret Thatcher, I’ve been wondering how she pulled off the voice match. It’s uncanny. Initially, for about 20 seconds, I thought the trailer was using the real former Prime Minister’s voice. But, no, it’s all Meryl. ‘You’re talking about the best actress in the world,’ explained Damian Jones, who produced The Iron Lady. ‘She did it herself. She went deep inside Mrs Thatcher to do it. And you have to remember that the real Mrs Thatcher’s voice was different before Gordon Reece did his makeover when she became leader. Her clothes, her look and her voice changed.’ Jones added: ‘Meryl had to learn the speech pattern she had and then master how the voice became. She went on YouTube and found every bit of footage that featured Thatcher speaking. ‘And the production team found archive audio and visual footage from the late Seventies through to when she resigned from Downing Street. We gave it all to Meryl and she went to work on it.’ As I noted last week, Streep doesn’t mimic Thatcher. By observing how she stood and sat, she was able to assume Thatcher’s sensibilities.

‘Meryl does a scene in the House of Commons, and it’s so uncanny she had the cast and crew eating out of her hands,’ Jones continued. ‘The only thing she wouldn’t do was work with a dialect consultant. She finds it inhibiting. However, she did check in with the voice coach Jill McCullough, who was working with Alexandra Roach, who portrays Thatcher when she was younger. The two actresses had to be on the same page.’ The Iron Lady is tentatively due to be released on January 6 next year. Certainly, it may be shown at one or two film festivals, but the festival policy has to be decided between Pathe and Film4, the movie’s UK backers, and Weinstein Co, the U.S. distributor.