Meryl Streep Reacts To Margaret Thatcher’s Death

Margaret Thatcher’s death has drawn as polarizing a reaction as her political career did, but one very high-profile champion of the former British politician is the acclaimed actress who won as Oscar for playing her. None other than Meryl Streep.

Streep won the award for Best Actress at the 84th Academy Awards for playing Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Thatcher passed away on Monday after suffering a stroke, which inspired Streep to release a statement about her.

Her comments about the iconic British Prime Minster are mostly flattering, highlighting the amount of good Thatcher did “willingly or unwillingly, for the role of women in politics.”

Though Streep concedes the controversial nature of Thatcher’s political career, she praises the late Conservative pol for her “personal strength and grit” and points to her influence as an individual who rose not from nepotism or wealth, but from her own drive and conviction.

Streep’s full statement is below:

“Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer, willingly or unwillingly, for the role of women in politics.

“It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the UK at the end of the 20th century. Her hard-nosed fiscal measures took a toll on the poor, and her hands-off approach to financial regulation led to great wealth for others. There is an argument that her steadfast, almost emotional loyalty to the pound sterling has helped the UK weather the storms of European monetary uncertainty.

“But to me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit. To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class bound and gender phobic as it was, in the time that she did and the way that she did, was a formidable achievement. To have won it, not because she inherited position as the daughter of a great man, or the widow of an important man, but by dint of her own striving. To have withstood the special hatred and ridicule, unprecedented in my opinion, leveled in our time at a public figure who was not a mass murderer; and to have managed to keep her convictions attached to fervent ideals and ideas — wrongheaded or misguided as we might see them now –without corruption. I see that as evidence of some kind of greatness, worthy for the argument of history to settle. To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable.

“I was honored to try to imagine her late life journey, after power; but I have only a glancing understanding of what her many struggles were, and how she managed to sail through to the other side. I wish to convey my respectful condolences to her family and many friends.”

Streep’s Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady was a huge box office and critical hit in 2011, grossing more than $110 million worldwide.

[Image via: Andreas Tai, Wikimedia Commons]