Dame Harriet Walter has said it was “difficult” to portray the “mask-like” quality of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher for a new Channel 4 drama.
Brian And Maggie tells the story of the 1989 TV interview between the late politician and journalist Brian Walden, played by Steve Coogan, which became a national talking point and set in train a series of events that ended with her resignation the following year.
Dame Harriet, 74, who is known for playing Lady Caroline Collingwood in Emmy-winning series Succession, said she was “very surprised” when she was asked to play Thatcher “because I didn’t see any association with her”.
Dame Harriet has brown eyes and dark-coloured hair, while Thatcher had blue eyes and light hair.
The actress said: “We had a brilliant wig department under Vanessa White that created three different blonde wigs – each slightly aged to represent different stages of Margaret’s life.
“We made my complexion much more peaches and cream. I had contact lenses.
“Blue eyes for when I was younger, blue-grey eyes for when I was older.
“I had a fake set of teeth made, as Thatcher had a slight overbite, so the fake teeth slightly influenced the way I spoke.
“Gabriela Yiaxis the costume designer helped hugely. In my costume I had a full padded bra and broader shoulders.
“All these little details were so important. Then I basically watched her a lot and watched her movements and watched her mannerisms.
“What was very, very difficult to achieve was that I’m very animated and she’s quite mask-like in a way.
“I had to really control that. What I find with her, she would smile with her mouth and not smile with her eyes, and I couldn’t do that.
“I tried but I’ve watched back some of it and my eyes are smiling.”
Dame Harriet said it was a shame Thatcher was a “role model for other female Tory politicians” but explained that she was able to empathise with her despite her not having been a “feminist sympathiser”.
“While shooting this story, I kept seeing things from her point of view, as a woman surrounded by men and that coloured my way into her,” she said.
“It was my way into empathising with her, it was my way into understanding her.
“It was being a woman in that situation and everything about her rigidity and her personality or her public persona – was about trying to prove to the boys that she could be as tough as them.
“It (Thatcherism) gave feminism a bad name and didn’t help women really but as a feminist woman playing her, I couldn’t not see it through that prism.”
Alan Partridge star Coogan, 59, said he and Dame Harriet felt “politically antipathetic” towards Thatcher, but added that he was also able to empathise with her, to some extent.
He said: “The notion of being successful through hard work is a very Thatcherite sort of thing and I have a successful company now, so in some ways I am an example of the Thatcherite model of material success even though I have other concerns and I like to think I am community minded, more philanthropic, more egalitarian.
“However, what really interests me is the paradox that she and Brian Walden were outside of the establishment, which I identify with.
“I feel comfortable being outside the establishment, but I want to succeed in a way that the establishment has to acknowledge, and I think Brian Walden and Margaret Thatcher felt the same – which allows me to have empathy for both of them in that regard.”
The two episodes have been written by Dear England playwright James Graham and directed by film-maker Stephen Frears.
The drama is based on a book by political editor and TV producer Rob Burley called Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?: Searching For The Truth On Political TV.
Brian and Maggie starts Wednesday January 29 at 9pm on Channel 4.
