Meryl Streep Talks Oscar and Filming "The Iron Lady"

You think it's easy transforming into the "Iron Lady?" Meryl Streep laughs when she thinks about the rumors. 

Forget the chatter that it took four hours to get her into Margaret Thatcher mode.

"No, no, no," says the 62-year-old Oscar nominee. "We got it down to under two hours."

Streep is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar as the steely leader of England.

One of the best actresses of our time doesn't mind a style question about aging on screen.

"Interestingly, in the process of developing the older Margaret, we ended up taking away, taking away, taking away," Streep says.

"There were certain elements that the genius prosthetics designer, Mark Coulier, was able to achieve. He created something that was tissue-thin, so that I felt very free.

"I felt like I was looking at a member of my family – if not me at that age. So, it actually made the acting easier."

STEPPING INTO "VERY SMALL, TIGHT, BIG SHOES"

Streep says that she didn't feel pressure playing such a larger than life figure like Thatcher. In fact, she delights in playing women who are far different from herself.

"I think for me to imagine myself in different ways comes from my beginnings in the theater," she says. "People are more accepting of when you go apparently wildly afield from who you are or where you were brought up.

"Otherwise, I would always play people from New Jersey," she says. "That limits the career.

"Yes, I felt like I had the freedom to try to step into these very small, tight, big shoes with Margaret Thatcher," she says.

Streep says she related to Thatcher as a mother.

"I have an inkling of the size of the day that she filled. I looked at her daily calendar and I tried to imagine that," Streep says.

"I'm a mother and I work in spurts," she adds. "I work for four or five months and then not. I'm home a lot.

"I tried to imagine 11 ½ years of having a job where if there were 10 minutes of free time anywhere in her day that was wasted, wasted time," she says.

"I imagined trying to be in the lives of your children to the degree that I try to be in their lives," she says. "I think that would have been very difficult."

Above all, Streep wanted to play Thatcher because "she stirs very strong feelings even today.

"Twenty years after leaving power, and she remains divisive," she says. "The film will enter a landscape of a world where she continues to cause controversy."

She marvels that Thatcher was one of the few female leaders of the world.

"I'm in awe," she says. "All of these things were arrayed against her succeeding. She got on top of her party and led a country.

"She was the longest serving prime minister in the 20^th century. The array of obstacles that stood before her in England at that time was enormous.

"Even if you don't agree with her politics, her determination, her stamina, and her courage is so impressive.

"I think that anybody who stands up and is willing to be a leader and who is as prepared and as smart as she was is admirable," Streep says.

"She really sacrificed a great deal," she says. "All our public figures do."

HER FAVORITE SCENE

There is a scene in "The Iron Lady" where Thatcher, suffering from dementia, dances around the room with her deceased husband.

"I was completely overcome," she says. "I just broke down because it was like seeing your actual life flash before your eyes.

"I had been so immersed in my age and ability," she says. "Then to see this glorious couple come through in such a free way was beautiful. It did anchor something emotionally in me that was very important."

PLAYING SOMEONE WITH DEMENTIA

Streep says that she almost met Thatcher.

"I did not meet her. I did see her once at my daughter's university, Northwestern" she says. "We went to see her lecture and that made an indelible impression on me."

She says there was a special responsibility when it came to playing someone who impacted history.

"We have come under criticism for portraying someone who is frail and in delicate health," she says. "Some people have said it's shameful to portray this part of a life. But the corollary thought to that is if you think that debility, delicacy or dementia is shameful, if you think that the ebbing end of life is something that should be shut away, if you think that people need to be defended from those images well….I don't think that."

"I have had experience with people with dementia. I understand it," she says. "I think it's natural."

HER LIFE ON SCREEN

In person, Streep is so accessible and friendly. You almost forget that you're talking to one of the greatest actresses of all time.

She will happily talk to you about losing a few pounds by giving up a glass of wine with dinner. Or she will happily chat about her kids.

Ask her about her decision to become an actress and she laughs.

"For me, I never really decided to become an actress. I'm still ambivalent," she says.

"But being an actor lets me be a million different things, so I don't have to decide," she muses.

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