Courtesy of Pathé
Anticipation is already high for Meryl Streep's turn as the first female prime minister of England, Margaret Thatcher, in the film Iron Lady. Now, a teaser trailer for the movie -- which is helmed by Phyllida Lloyd (who also directed Streep in Mamma Mia!) and opens in select theaters December 16 -- has arrived, and our enthusiasm has multiplied tenfold. Watch the trailer below for your first glimpse at the incomparable Streep portraying the fearsome Thatcher -- English accent, buck teeth and all!
Streep, who has made a career out of dazzling audiences with her broad range and gift with different accents, is not seen in the brief one-minute clip until the very end. Instead, two advisers sit in a dark room talking to an unseen individual, telling her that she needs to make some adjustments in her appearance and personality in order to "make you look and sound like the leader that you could be."
One adviser says, "That hat has got to go. And the pearls." It's an incisive comment on the kind of sexist commentary that Thatcher received during her initial bid for power, the assumption being that anything too "womanly" would undercut her strength. She is also told that "her voice is too high" and that it has "no authority." That is when we hear Streep's dead-on Thatcher voice from behind the camera: "I may be persuaded to surrender the hat." She then appears, sitting in a chair, the spitting image of Thatcher. "The pearls, however, are absolutely non-negotiable," she says in a voice that epitomizes authority. "That's the tone we want to strike!"
We couldn't agree more. Let the countdown to Iron Lady -- and the Meryl Streep Oscar buzz -- begin.
