Iron Lady: We chat to Meryl Streep

In a beautiful but contentious adaptation of Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister, Meryl Streep deals with the sensitive issue of dementia. But how did she prepare herself? Rachel Clark writes.

Portraying one of the most loved and hated characters of British politics of the 20th century was always going to be a mammoth task. And Meryl Streep wasn’t going to take her job playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady lightly.

Meryl Streep plays British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the Iron Lady film. Throughout the 11 years of her premiership, from 1979 to 1990, Thatcher was characterised by her tough-lady stance, cancelling school milk, closing the mines and generally making unpopular – arguably necessary – decisions. But there’s no escaping that The Iron Lady has been a huge hit with cinema-goers.

The film follows Baroness Thatcher from her early years breaking through class and gender barriers to become Prime Minister to her political downfall in 1990. The Iron Lady also stars Jim Broadbent as her husband Denis Thatcher and Richard E Grant and Anthony Head as cabinet ministers Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine.

The Thatcher era was a time of social and economic change for Britain. Elected following a period of widespread strikes – dubbed the winter of discontent – Lady Thatcher and her Conservative government embarked on tough reforms to tackle inflation and the trade unions. Her policies divided the country – seeing a boom in the service sector and home ownership but a decline in manufacturing and soaring unemployment.

Grantham-born and bred, Baroness Thatcher had led an interesting life. Born to a former mayor of the town – a greengrocer – she was a young schoolgirl growing up above her father’s shop in what was then a small, rural community in the Midlands. Little did she know that one day she would leave a legacy and have made such a tremendous mark on British society, and indeed the world.

And Meryl Streep made sure she didn’t underestimate the challenge that lay before her. “I had to read a lot. I usually don’t have to read so much, but I felt a responsibility to the events of her life to get it right, and I had to immerse myself in her persona,” she said.

“I had to imagine an older persona that is not photographed or videotaped or that we are not privy to. But saying that, it was a challenge, but it wasn’t anything unpleasant. It was really sort of amazing, to learn more about a very controversial figure, to know what I didn’t know, to be surprised by it, and to imagine it in a way like myself.” But this film wasn’t just a massive feat because of Thatcher’s persona. It’s widely known that for some years, Margaret Thatcher has been suffering with dementia. Slowly worsening, she has now been out of the public eye for the best part of ten years, only in front of the cameras at important events.

I asked Meryl how she felt, knowing that Lady Thatcher may watch her interpretation. “We have come under criticism for portraying a person who is frail and in delicate health.

“Some people have said that it’s shameful to portray this part of a life, but the corollary thought to that is if you think that debility, delicacy, dementia is shameful, if you think that the ebbing end of life is something that should be shut away, then that’s fine.

“But I don’t think that. I have had experience with people with dementia. I understand it and I think it’s natural. We’re naturally interested in our leaders and we tell stories about ourselves through the stories of important people,” she said.

At one point in The Iron Lady, Thatcher complains: “It used to be about trying to do something. Now it’s about trying to be someone.” Somewhat ironic, considering Streep is playing Thatcher, but Meryl’s own reflection upon that is based on 21st century public life.

“Well I think that’s a question about the inauthenticity that’s accompanied by the 24/7 news cycle in our being videotaped constantly. From the fœtal position, we are photographed, from before we are even born. And the self-consciousness that accompanies that, it’s like walking around with a mirror constantly. Our public figures are always confronted with themselves, and they begin to check themselves, and it’s weird in the information age where we are actually more careful than people were before.

“And they got focus groups, this is how we make movies now. It’s very hard as a director to hold on to your original vision. You know, they say ‘well, we tried this out in Los Angeles, and these people didn’t understand what was going on at the beginning, they didn’t like her, they didn’t like him, they thought there should be more action.’ This is how we make movies, it’s how we make policy, so you understand why she might have said something like that,” Meryl says.

It is certainly clear that they’ve thought about the process of the film extensively. Instead of being set over her 11 years as prime minister, the film starts as a recollection of events in old age. In a beautiful and poignant moment, Lady Thatcher proclaims “I don’t want to die washing a teacup.”

For Meryl, this is an important interpretation of how everyone feels when they are younger. “This is an imagined sequence in her youth and in her old age, but it comes from that thing where young women often will say: “I’m not going to be anything like my mother”, and then they reach a certain age, and guess what? You know what, they are rejecting the toll that living a long life takes on a person, and they don’t want that. Basically, they don’t want to get old. But we all get old, if we are lucky, so, that’s an interesting thing to portray.”

Whether or not one agrees with Thatcher’s policies, I can’t help feeling that perhaps her imperious nature is missed in today’s politics on the world stage. A view that seems to be shared by Streep. “Yes, I mean, I didn’t write this film,” Meryl laughs.

“But certainly we recognise that it is refreshing when people say exactly what they think, and follow through with it. So at least you know your enemy. It is that clarity. Look, I don’t presume to pronounce on President Obama, I think he’s a great President, and I think he’s got the hardest job in the world. I don’t presume to know how to do that job, but there is a perception that before all the poll takers came into the process, that people could be more vividly themselves, but I think it has to do more with remaining in office and having to compromise in order to stay in office. Who knows?,” Meryl says.

It seems from listening to Streep’s answers that maybe she has a lot more in common with the tenacious Thatcher than she thought. But I was anxious to know what she admired about the lady she so beautifully portrayed?

“Well there were things that really surprised me, like she didn’t have a cook. if I were the Prime Minister of England, [laughs] I would have a cook. But she liked to cook dinner. She had enormous stamina, famously. She would sleep four or five hours a night, didn’t need anymore. Other people did, and so she would have her cabinet up into her apartments, which were tiny.

“The White House staff is something like 400 people and the staff at 10 Downing Street and all the Government offices was 60 people when she was in office. It’s just remarkable how hands on and personal and hard the job was that she did, just in terms of physical stamina. And she never seemed to be sick, she never did have any tolerance for people who were. She had terrible problems with her teeth over time and you never knew it,” Meryl sympathises.

As an American playing one of Britain’s all time political giants, Streep has evidently gone to some lengths to realise the differences between the politics of the stars and stripes and those of the Union Flag.

“When we think of a conservative in America, we think of a social conservative. But she was pro-choice. She was not a pro-lifer. She defended the National Health Service, which in America is anathema to the conservatives.

“She was famously unprejudiced about people’s background, including those she had in the Tory Party, which were mainly all Etonians and Oxbridge-educated. She had people that were [perceived to be] outside the social circle, she had Jews at cabinet level, homosexuals serving, people who had scandal. She wouldn’t fire them. She didn’t care what you did, you just had to do your job. So that was a surprise to me. To me, she would not be a conservative in America, just on those terms,” Meryl says.

So, given the opportunity to meet the lady she so obviously admired, what would Streep ask her? “Well, it’s hard to say now, because she is suffering from dementia, and she doesn’t meet people publicly. She has gone out recently to a couple of events, and that was gratifying to people because they thought she had been very ill, but she’s a secret now.

“I did see her speak once, in 2002, when I took my daughter out to college at Northwestern, and she was giving an address at the Student Union. She was talking about the end of The Cold War, and sort of deconstructing her own legacy. She was going to speak for about 45 minutes to an hour and then they were going to open it up for half an hour, only one half hour, of questions.

“So me and my daughter sat way up in the balcony, and she spoke, and it seemed like a prepared lecture. And then she opened for half an hour and all the kids lined up because she didn’t have a big cohort of supporters, at Northwestern, [laughs] in Chicago, but she answered every question respectfully, thoughtfully, in full paragraphs, beautifully wrought, I mean it was so impressive and she went on for over an hour and a half, and they had to stop her.”

Thatcher obviously made sacrifices for her work, she had to. Juggling family life with being one of the world’s most respected leaders is a mean feat. I was interested to know whether Streep makes the same kind of sacrifices in her life.

“Everybody makes a sacrifice who works as a parent, who has a big, ambitious life. For me, because it’s film, it’s four months, and then I can stop. It’s very kind to mothers weirdly, I mean, when babies are little you can bring them to the movie, to the set, and it’s not like being a lawyer or an architect. My best friend is an architect. The hours are insane, and they work all weekend and trying to raise two kids… but show business is good!”

Along with the criticism about the dementia subject, the film has got excellent reviews across the board. But what would Meryl do differently? “Oh many things. (laughter) That’s for me to know. But yes, everything is a decision, everything is a choice, it comes down to that, the choice. It’s very hard and you don’t even know if the choices you made were the right ones, and the jury is out until your children have children, [sighs] so it’s an on-going anxiety.

“But, for me the reason to make the film was to look at the life of a big public person, and then to morph it at some point into a story about you and me, and all of us, going down the end quarter. How do we take leave of things, how do we reconcile ourselves to the cost of what the choices we made in our life? So that way, it’s like an existential movie,” she says.

Throughout the film, Streep has been careful to ensure they think carefully about how Thatcher would act, what she was thinking, and how she evaluated her mark on society. “This film is three days in an old woman’s life, where the entire action of it really is that she manages to pack up these memories, ones that maybe disoriented her.”

“This is about something that involves letting go, and that’s something that intrigues me about the old people that I know. I always thought about my mother, when she would get a phone call that one of her friends had gone, she said, oh, they are all stepping off now, meaning they are all stepping off the edge. It was sort of so amazing and interesting to me, the equanimity with which she confronted that truth. She was sad, but she was alive, every second that she could be. So that interested me.”

After all the thought, the reflection, the importance placed upon getting her character just right and the huge responsibility of showing a rapid ascendancy as well a relatively speedy declension, Streep must have developed a fondness for the character – and therefore Lady Thatcher as a person?

“I ended up being surprised. We all think we know everything don’t we? I think I know everything going into stuff, but I’m always surprised.”

Whatever one’s perception of Lady Thatcher’s time in office, one has to admire the clarity, resolution and assertiveness that embodied her premiership. And to play a great woman, you need a great woman. This beautiful depiction – while controversial – was intelligent, well thought through and sensitive.

And I couldn’t think of anyone more qualified than Meryl Streep to play it.