Meryl Streep opens up about playing Maggie Thatcher

And the actress bears an uncanny resemblance to the former British prime minister.

Streep, 62, opens up about playing the UK’s first female leader in the new movie.

“I remember everybody was sort of secretly freaked that she got in,” Streep says about Thatcher’s 1979 general election win.

“We thought any second that meant here [in the US] we’d have a woman president,” she adds.

Newsweek interviewed Streep as part of a nine-page spread devoted to Thatcher’s life and career.

The Mamm Mia! star comments on the 86-year-old’s legacy, saying that the Conservative leader had been rejected “even from [sic] feminists”.

Streep says she did a lot of research on Thatcher before taking the role, including speaking to people who worked with her during her parliamentary career.

The Devil Wears Prada star says: “Lots of politicians I talked to said how attractive and flirtatious she was in the beginning.

“She recognised the power of femininity, and she really loved being the woman in the room.”

But Streep alleges that Thatcher’s colleagues later came to fear the mother-of-two, especially during her 11 years in Downing Street.

“The men I talked to about Thatcher claimed when she reached for the [hand]bag, you just never knew what was going to come out.

“Your heart went into your feet.”