“It always really bothers me when people imagine that characters that don’t look like you, or have the same accent as you do, are far from you. The great actress Sybil Thorndike said ‘I think we all have the germ of every other person inside of us.’ And I think we do.”
—Meryl Streep on, uh, the universality of humankind, I guess, to 60 Minutes
Look. Meryl Streep can do anything. No one disputes it. I’m sure that her characterization of Margaret Thatcher in the upcoming The Iron Lady—not her impersonation, but her actual acting—will move me. And in turn, I’ll be, uh, moved by Margaret Thatcher’s own humanity.
In fact, I’m sure Meryl will be able to convince me that she inhabits every fiber of Margaret Thatcher’s being. She convinced me she really was Julia Child, and she will convince as Margaret Thatcher. (Hell, Emily is already convinced.)
But gosh damn it, this person? This cartoon? On the cover of Newsweek? This person does not look anything like Margaret Thatcher. At all. (Emily! No! No, no no!) I mean, I do see what they were doing with the makeup; I do. And it’s, um.
Well, it just looks like Meryl with false teeth. That’s basically all.
Like, the character makeup itself is really subtle—because it shouldn’t be over-the-top—but then it’s just like, OH. Suddenly, Meryl with fake teeth. Those teeth don’t look real; they look ridiculous.
I’m impressed with the “tired eye” makeup, however. Also, the eyebrows. The lunch lady hair, I can take or leave.
BONUS QUOTABLE. Meryl weighs in on playing Margaret Thatcher in a sidebar in the latest issue of Newsweek:
“She was canny about the fact that in order to be taken seriously, she wasn’t able to show certain emotions because she was a woman. Churchill could cry over everything, but if she cried it meant something else; it meant she wasn’t fit to be leader.”
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- Filed under: Meryl Streep
