The Falklands marked a crucial point in the former prime minister's career and the film will unfold over a period of 17 days leading up to the war, showing how she dealt with the pressure. The Oscar winner Jim Broadbent is tipped to play her husband Denis in the movie, which is being developed by Pathé and BBC films. The movie, set in the build-up to the Falklands conflict in 1982, will be directed by Phyllida Lloyd, who also helmed Mamma Mia!, the biggest-grossing British film of all time. Lloyd previously directed Streep in the 2008 Hollywood blockbuster Mamma Mia! The 61-year-old Streep will be slightly older than the Iron Lady she is playing: Thatcher was 56 when the Argentine president, General Galtieri, ordered the capture of the Falklands.
– Meryl Streep is set to team up with Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd again for a movie with considerably less singing and dancing. Producers have confirmed that the actress is in talks to play Margaret Thatcher in a biopic focusing on the tense 17 days leading up to the 1982 Falklands War, the Telegraph reports. Fellow Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent is expected to play husband Denis Thatcher. "Meryl Streep is the consummate film actress and can nail all kinds of emotional and dramatic colours, so she is the perfect choice," the editor of movie magazine Empire tells the Independent. She delivered an impeccable English accent in The French Lieutenant's Woman and has played formidable women throughout her career. She will draw out the humanity in Margaret Thatcher—no mean feat."