Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep concluded part deux of her November tour of Washington Wednesday night as she introduced her new Margaret Thatcher-themed film “The Iron Lady” to an audience filled with influential area ladies.
“I know there are some woman legislators here who will have, I think, a very particular understanding of the subtle, specific, unique challenges that women who decide to stand and serve face as leaders,” she told those gathered at the E Street Cinema, which included Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Susan Collins.
In the film, out early next year, Streep depicts a Thatcher late in her years, who sees apparitions of her late husband (the real Denis Thatcher died in 2003) and then flashes back to recall pivotal moments in her political life. “This is not a biopic,” Streep warned. “It is a look back at a very ambitious life from the vantage point of its waning years from the lens of the women who lived it.”
Beyond praising Thatcher, Streep wouldn’t name names of her favorite female pols. “I admire any woman who stands and serves, I really do,” she told Yeas & Nays. “It’s at great cost and women have a particular understanding of the cost of that service and they understand what it’s going to take, where I think fellows blithely sail through it.”
The screening was Streep’s second appearance in Washington this month to benefit the National Women’s History Museum. And this time she came armed with a giant purse. “Margaret Thatcher always had a handbag that terrified her opponents,” Streep explained, ticking off its usual contents — chocolates, policy papers, recipes and inspirational messages written on 3 by 5 inch cards. “I’m going to read you one I thought you’d particularly enjoy,” she said. “This line is from Lord Salisbury — ‘Many who think they are workers in politics are really merely tools,'” she read.
And with that, Streep let out a loud cackle and the crowd followed suit. “So much for her lack of humor,” she said of Thatcher. “She liked to laugh.”
