* * *
Looking
a little out of his element, and somehow disheveled despite being impeccably
dressed, green-eyed Harry Lloyd was overwhelmed by what he called the “craziness”
of New York City, but added that it is “ridiculous—it feels great” (Lloyd, in “The Iron Lady NY Premiere”). He was in the U.S. then, in mid-December
2011, and at his first movie premiere in that infamous City that Never
Sleeps. The movie in question was The Iron Lady.
It
seems he was surprised by the attention both he and the film were getting: “The
Americans really seem to be interested by it, and go along with it…it’s
fantastic,” he told reporters on the Red Carpet at this same premiere on
December 13, 2011, talking about the story of The Iron Lady and its ability to be more than something that is a
strictly-British political or historical picture. Well, it does star America’s
Star Meryl Streep. But Lloyd himself is
worthy of accolade, and has turned a what-could’ve-been-cartoonish figure with
a sense of sometimes outlandish humor and made him an endearing yet strong
character. His Denis Thatcher fits snuggly like a jig-saw piece into the puzzle
of the rest of the film’s pieces—and, often, it is a breath of fresh air in the
sometimes musty film of past-remembrances and haunting memories.
Image Source: Larry Busacca/Getty Images
North America
Sometimes,
the process of creating a character—fictional or real—is surprising. It can be a prop, a movement, or a costume
that conveys more believability and compulsion to launch fully into a character
than does years of training or days or rehearsal. At a rather “candid” New York City press
conference for the film that included director Phyllida Lloyd, writer Abi
Morgan, and actors Meryl Streep and Harry Lloyd (Warburton), many wonderful
tidbits and insights about The Iron Lady
emerged. Directing a question to Harry
and Meryl, and noting that the two did not interact with one another on the
screen, one interviewer asked if the actors interacted “behind the scenes
discussing your characters” (Warburton).
Harry’s response included a description of a “lovely few days of
rehearsing,” including photo shoots with the actors, including him, Streep, Jim
Broadbent, and Alexandra Roach, in a series of different costumes so that
pictures could be scattered through the Thatcher house. Although we don’t see a
marriage or honeymoon for the Thatchers, “we had to pretend to get married and
to be on honeymoon” (Lloyd, in Warburton).
Lloyd insists that seeing Broadbent in costume and character as Denis
was a solidifying moment: “it was very different than just talking to someone
about how they’re going to do it—which are always pretty fatuous conversations
because actors don’t normally even know what they’re doing (laughs)—to able to
observe it and see some common ground in what we had and what was different
about it, that was the most useful day in terms of me and Jim” (qtd. in
Warburton).
In
his interview with Harry, Craig Hubert asked the actor about why he was
interested in Denis Thatcher in the first place. Harry began by admitting a
fascination with the man, “the only guy who has been male consort to a female
Prime Minister” (Lloyd, in Hubert).
Harry went on to add that the connection between Margaret and Denis was
“a fascinating relationship—how they stayed so strong, and in a way, so
private, through everything” (Lloyd, in Hubert).
He
continues intimating that his relationship with the real Denis Thatcher is,
perhaps, unprecedented—and perhaps even reflects the relationship the real
Thatcher had with his Prime Minister Wife.
He had a chance to research the private Denis, the one outside of public
scrutiny and who, perhaps, cavorted and pranced rather than strolled
professionally over the carpets behind the closed doors of his home. Confessing
a familiarity to the stranger he never met, Harry says, “[t]here was something
incredibly traditional about him that reminded me of my grandfather in terms of
his sense of humor and politics. But I think what is most fascinating about
both of them is this wonderful relationship and how they were both extremely
successful in their own fields and how they supported each other. The open door
between them—it was an extremely functional relationship” (qtd. in Hubert).
Indeed,
the “functionality” of Lloyd’s performance in The Iron Lady is something that comes across quite well in his
on-screen moments, as I suggested in my previous blog entry.
Toe-to-toe: Denis Thatcher (Harry Lloyd)
and Margaret Roberts (Alexandra Roach) prepare to dance following their
engagement.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
Researching the Role
There
was one moment when, realizing that “there’s not a huge amount of footage” of
Denis Thatcher as a young man, “part of me panicked,” Lloyd has confessed to
Jim Slotek of The Toronto Sun (qtd.
in Slotek). He got around his fears by
realizing that “I had room to breathe, because people's perceptions (of the young
Denis) are less stringent” (Lloyd, in Slotek).
Books and documentaries from Thatcher’s daughter seemed the most
helpful.
Perhaps
Lloyd’s background as an English Literature student is paying off, for he is
not shy about rushing to books for researching his roles. A biography on Denis Thatcher by law-schooled
daughter Carol, Below the Parapet
(1997), was his “most useful” tool to figuring out the real Denis: “To find
stuff about his early life was tricky, but this book was brilliant, to see who
he was before he even met Margaret, about the years that may part specializes
in—meeting her, their courtship, how and why they fell in love” (Lloyd, in
Hubert). It’s phenomenal to see the
actor so engaged with the material that despite none of this background making
it into The Iron Lady he’s still
eager to convey the feeling that this
past is part of the man we see before us now, at the point when he meets Margaret
for the first time. Lloyd says as much:
“even though it’s not dealt with in the film, for me, understanding that first
marriage [was important], and what that meant coming back from the war and his
marriage falling apart. The different attitude you have going in to a second
marriage, I thought that was very interesting, and it helped me understand—not
his standoffishness—his eagerness for them to live their own lives” (Lloyd, in
Hubert). For Lloyd, it’s clear that a
background check (so to speak) is as essential for actors as it is for
employers: until you give someone the job, including yourself, know your
facts! Know what you’re to expect! Know what is expected from you!
It’s
an attitude worthy of respect and admiration, and one that helps Lloydalists
continue to stand with great support behind Harry Lloyd.
Research
was also a hit-or-miss, tricky way to prepare for the role, for hindsight can
prove detrimental to one playing the role of a man from the past who didn’t
know what his future would hold. “After looking around at the big events of her
[Margaret Thatcher’s] time in power,” Harry recognizes, “I realized quite
quickly they weren't helpful to me to play this part. I'm playing a man who
doesn't know he's going to be married to a prime minister. I need to keep this
much simpler and not get bogged down in a sticky subject, quite frankly”
(Lloyd, in Hubert). Instead, Lloyd wound
up researching socialist politics of the 1950s, Denis’ business and love of
rugby, and decided to stop “reading halfway through the biography—I didn't want
to know the rest of it” (Lloyd, in Hubert). He adds, “[t]he great bit about our
part of the film is that there aren't such weighted expectations because they
weren't responsible for other people, yet, and they weren't important in the
public eye. I think that allowed me and Alex [Alexandra Roach] to shrug off all
these expectations that comes with this film. I would be terrified to play the
well-known version” (qtd. in Hubert). Of
course, we have confidence that Harry could manage to play the “well-known
version” rather convincingly, indeed.
Harry
is also irresistible forthcoming and pragmatic.
When asked more fully if he had “any trepidation playing characters with
long and fully formed reputations in the public?” (Hubert), he laughed at the
question, and admitted “Massive terror” (qtd. in Hubert). It was also an ordeal
trying “to channel” a “living memory” of someone real, to those who may have
known him and are watching, “through another actor’s interpretation” (Lloyd, in
Hubert). Lloyd “spent a lot of time working out, ‘Am I playing this character
on the page or am I doing it the way Jim Broadbent is playing the character
later in the film?’ You can go mad” (Lloyd, in Hubert). The transition between
young and older Thatcher, between Lloyd’s and Broadbent’s performances, is
divinely executed. Craig Hubert rightly
suggests that the “blend, or shift, between the two performances seems pretty
natural,” and Lloyd is glad that this is the case, for this “was always a big
worry” (qtd. in Hubert).
When
it comes to channeling not only a real-life figure much in the public eye but,
even more, another (famous) actor’s interpretation of that figure, Lloyd had to
play Denis Thatcher twice removed. He
had, then, at least two layers of “acting” to penetrate in order to make his
performance seem flawless, natural, and fluent—if not so fluid that it doesn’t
even look like acting. Though he
rehearsed the characterization early on, he found watching the real Thatcher,
such as in the documentary Married to
Maggie, which daughter Carol produced, helpful (Lloyd, in Hubert). Yet,
even such materials had their pitfalls:
the vast
majority of footage is all of him as an older man—so again, playing him as a
young man there isn't necessarily much publicly accessible footage. So I had to
take all that, but also be aware that that is Jim [Broadbent]'s world, and stay
away from that and not try to copy that. I had to at least be aware of that.
And I started filming a few weeks after Jim did, so I got some rushes and saw
at least what Jim looked like on camera and made sure I wasn't doing something
completely different. But ultimately, we have different shaped faces and
things. When you're on camera, you can't think of all the technical things. (Lloyd,
in Hubert)
Lloyd’s
response is wonderfully aware, thoughtful, and well-rounded. And it also underscores the attention to
physicality, touched upon in the previous Lloydalists blog entry, that may help
explain his focus on morphing his mannerisms and body in order to convey the
same aura of an individual who may not look exactly like him. It’s all in capturing the little
idiosyncrasies so that the audience believes you look like and are someone,
even if you aren’t.
A photograph of the Thatcher Family,
used to dress the set: Margaret (Roach), Denis (Lloyd), Mark (Alexander
Beardsley), and Carol (Eloise Webb).
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
The
Iron Lady “very much like
a play”? Drawing Upon Past Experience
Perhaps the attention to minutiae and nuances has something to do with Harry’s theatre background, an experience that stresses to actors the importance of making every gesture count so that every audience member can capture, from the front to the last row, the emotion and energy of the actor.
When
asked, “[h]ow did your background in theatre enhance your experience in this
particular film?” (Warburton), Harry Lloyd had this to say:
I think it really
helped when we were putting it together, the way we rehearsed it was very much
like a play. We had all the scenes and every scene we went through over at
Pinewoods [studio], and Phyllida kept it very loose, as you do early on at
rehearsals—you don’t try to pin it down, knowing you’ve got a long way to go.
Often in films you’ve got to rehearse it within five minutes because you’ve got
to shoot it. And we gave ourselves the time to play with it and so it was all
very collaborative, and I think background theatre helps you work that way.
(Lloyd, in Warburton)
Clearly,
Harry relishes these “collaborative” moments, feeding off the energies of
colleagues in the kind of immediate way that occurs on stage, sharing a mutual
space. There’s the suggestion that he is
not an actor in competition with anyone but who is looking to stretch himself,
to learn from others. His observations
of Broadbent’s Denis portrayal, and the research he did for the role in The Iron Lady, mentioned above, support
these ideas.
The
fluidity of stage—the “in-the-moment” requirements that are partially rooted in
the actors’ abilities to stick to character and
to engage with the audience simultaneously, breaking through the fourth wall on
occasion, also seems to have left its traces on the picture itself. It is an
engaging picture, The Iron Lady, and
despite the firmness of the title—a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s notorious
nickname in regards to her unyielding personality—there’s softness present,
too. A vulnerability in every one of the
characters, in “real time” or the “past” vignettes, allows itself exposition
every now and again. It is this
connective value of universal human traits that make The Iron Lady able to infiltrate various audience markets. The
film’s official blog even noted in early 2011, before wide release, that “[t]he
world appears keen to engage with The
Iron Lady” (TIL Movie). It really is an engaging picture, made so
mostly be the actors’ attention to detail, realistic and empathetic
characterizations, and the way in which this “political” picture becomes a
personal narrative told through the perspective of an aging has-been powerhouse
and her interactions with the ghosts of her past.
Final Reflections
Although
Lloyd admits that he has no particular interest in the politics of the time (he
was seven when Thatcher left office), the research he’s done has whet his
appetite for musings on the human condition in general. His thoughts are profound, mature, and highly-applicable
to any individual living at any time in history: What is the cost of sticking
to your own desires and ambitions, regardless of who disagrees or gets in your
way? “When you live that kind of life
what do you do afterwards? The human story of it, which for an actor, I think,
is always the most interesting part of it” (Lloyd, in Hubert).
The
online reviewer site Hollywood Chicago.com
believe that “Alexandra Roach as young Margaret nearly outdoes Meryl Streep,
and with less screen time. She had to somehow convey the roots of her character’s
iron countenance, and her performance in that evolution hits the right notes”
(McD). Somehow, Harry Lloyd got
overlooked, but I dare to say that he, too, conveyed the roots of his own
character, as entangled with Margaret’s, and hit the “right notes,” so to
speak. His double-task of playing
second-fiddle to a second-fiddle character (the adult Margaret Thatcher’s
younger selves’ other half, essentially) makes it harder for him to make a
presence in the picture, but he does—and without bizarre ostentation, either.
Although
The Iron Lady has not been met with
total critical success (a quick search through the transitory and ungraspable ether
of the Internet alone will yield as many reviews from disappointed viewers as
there are those who are charmed by the film; many of the disappointments stem
from historical inaccuracy and, unsurprising, the British reporters themselves
seem the most unforgiving of the bunch), it is a film showcasing Harry Lloyd’s
acting range, skill, versatility, and steadfastness. It’s hard to give a “ghost of the past” a
substantial presence, like attempting to take a fingerprint from half a century
ago and recreate the entire hand: but Lloyd’s turn as Denis Thatcher, in his
younger years, leaves, like that fingerprint, a notable trace on viewer’s
memories, long after the film has ended. Indeed, The Iron Lady is ripe with examples of what The Telegraph’s Mick Brown calls the “effusive charm” of Harry
Lloyd (Brown).
Harry Lloyd walking the Blue Carpet at
the London Premiere of The Iron Lady.
The premiere was held on January 4, 2012
at the BFI Southbank Theater.
Image Source: EZinemark.com. <http://society.ezinemark.com/meryl-streep-tom-hardy-and-jim-broadbent-arrived-at-the-iron-lady-uk-premiere-773759e0463d.html
>.
Works Cited
& Referenced
Brown, Mick.
“Bringing The Iron Lady to the Big
Screen.” The Telegraph. TheTelegraph.co.uk.
24 Dec. 2011. Web. 8 July 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/8968746/Bringing-the-Iron-Lady-to-the-big-screen.html>.
Hubert, Craig.
“Thatcher’s Match: Harry Lloyd on The
Irony Lady.” Interview Magazine. Interviewmagazine.com.
2011. Web 7 July 2012.
<http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/harry-lloyd-the-iron-lady/#page2>.
The Iron Lady. Dir. Phyllida Lloyd. Perf. Meryl Streep,
Jim Broadbent, et al. Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film Council. 2011.
Film.
“The Iron Lady (2011).” The Internet Movie
Database. IMDB.com. Web. 7 July 2012.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/combined>.
The Iron Lady Movie. Official Blog. Theironyladymovie.co.uk/blog. Web. 7
July 2012. <http://theironladymovie.co.uk/blog/>.
“The
Iron Lady New York Premiere—Harry Lloyd.” [video interview] TrailerAddict.com. 13 December 2012. Web
7 July 2012. <http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-iron-lady/new-york-premiere-harry-lloyd>.
McD, Patrick.
“Meryl Streep Accentuates Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.” Hollywood
Chicago.com. 14 Jan. 2012. Web. 8 July 2012. <http://hollywoodchicago.com/reviews/17061/meryl-streep-accentuates-margaret-thatcher-in-the-iron-lady#ixzz203KsXRfh>.
Slotek, Jim.
“Lloyd Explores Thatcher Hubby Role.” Torontosun.com.
13 Jan. 2012. Web. 7 July 2012. <http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/13/lloyd-explores-thatcher-hubby-role>.
Warburton,
Heather. “Meryl Streep, Director Phyllida Lloyd, Screenwriter Abi Morgan, and
Harry Lloyd Talk The Iron Lady.” Collider.com. 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 5 July
2012. <http://collider.com/meryl-streep-the-iron-lady-interview/134952/>.
~Written & Posted by C~
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