Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady Oscar bait
Two-time Academy Award winner and multiple nominee Meryl Streep is currently filming The Iron Lady in England, under the guidance of her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd. Does she look like the former right-wing British prime minister Margaret Thatcher? More like Meryl Thatcher, perhaps.
Emma Thompson and Helen Mirren could have been two other possibilities for the role, but Streep has proven that she can come up with flawless British accents, e.g., Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination, and Fred Schepisi’s box office disappointment Plenty (1985).
Released by Pathé U.K., the above Meryl as Margaret image is the very first one to come out of The Iron Lady.
‘The Iron Lady’ cast
Besides Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady also features Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Jim Broadbent (Iris), Anthony Head, and Richard E. Grant.
As per the film’s press release, Streep – whose political views are hardly similar to Thatcher’s – was quoted as saying the following:
The prospect of exploring the swathe cut through history by this remarkable woman is a daunting and exciting challenge. I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses – I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own!
Bear in mind that “said” and “quoted as saying” are two quite different things. Press releases are notorious for creating statements that were never actually either uttered or written by the “quotee.” (Of course, these are usually approved by the individual in question.)
Meryl Streep The Iron Lady quote via comingsoon.net.
Photo of Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady: Pathé U.K.
Marion Cotillard in Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Oscar winner Marion Cotillard joins The Dark Knight Rises cast
Marion Cotillard, one of the stars in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, has officially joined the cast of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.
A few weeks ago, Cotillard, who won a Best Actress Oscar for Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose in early 2008, had been announced as one of the leads in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, to star Robert Pattinson. She dropped out of the project in late January 2011.*
In The Dark Knight Rises, Marion Cotillard will join Christian Bale – the star of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight – Anne Hathaway (as Catwoman), Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and her fellow Inception players Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Michael Caine.
It’s unclear whether Cotillard will play some sort of superheroine or Batman’s (human-like) romantic interest. Or perhaps a combination of both.
Filming on The Dark Knight Rises should begin in mid-June 2011 at London’s Elstree Studios. The production will move to Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in the summer, and to New York in the fall.
The Dark Knight Rises is scheduled to open in North America in July 2012.
Marion Cotillard movies
Besides La Vie en Rose and Inception, Marion Cotillard movies, whether featuring the Oscar winner in lead or supporting roles, include the following Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement / Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), starring Audrey Tautou and Gaspard Ulliel; Karim Dridi’s The Last Flight / Le dernier vol (2009), with Guillaume Canet and Guillaume Marquet; and Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies / Les petits mouchoirs (2010), with François Cluzet, Benoît Magimel, Gilles Lellouche, and Jean Dujardin.
Marion Cotillard’s next release is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, which kicks off the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 11.
* Marion Cotillard’s Cosmopolis replacement turned out to be Juliette Binoche.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard Inception image: Stephen Vaughan | Warner Bros.