Olivia Colman was relieved Meryl Streep wore prosthetics on the set of their new film about former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – because it made it easier to forget that she was working with the Oscar-winning star. Colman plays Carol Thatcher in the movie, The Iron Lady, which stars Jim Broadbent as her father Denis Thatcher and Meryl as her mother, Britain’s first female prime minister. Olivia told Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: “I couldn’t quite believe I was in the same room or city as Meryl Streep. I was quite grateful that she was covered in prosthetics so she didn’t quite look like her, otherwise I don’t think I would have been able to function at all.” Olivia said Meryl perfected the voice of the former Tory leader, adding: “It’s spooky, its proper spine-chilling spooky, it’s brilliant.” Even though she thought she would turn “to jelly” while working with the actress, she said: “Within moments I forgot that she was stratospherically wonderful…she’s a funny woman, who is very close to giggles at all times.

“She’s got nothing to prove so there’s no ego, she was lovely to be around.” The Rev star did not meet Carol Thatcher before playing the role. She said that she was “not an impressionist” but that the trick to sounding like her was “weak Rs”. Olivia, who is also filming the role of Queen Elizabeth in Hyde Park On Hudson, the movie starring Bill Murray and Laura Linney, said of her future: “I hope to work until I can’t stand any more.”

Exiting news! The November issue of Vanity Fair features a pictorial by Brigitte Lacombe on the shooting of “The Iron Lady”. It’ll be on newsstands in New York and L.A. on October 4, and nationally and on the iPad October 11.

Over 200 new production stills – including photoshoots and on-set pictures – of most of Meryl’s films have been added to the gallery. Some have been replaced in better quality, the majority is new to the site. Click the previews below to see all new pictures. Enjoy!

Lots of additional on-set pictures from the shooting of “Great Hope Springs” have been added to the gallery. Check the previews below to access all new pictures.

Three more pictures from yesterday’s shoot of “Great Hope Springs” have been added.

And even more pictures from the “Great Hope Springs” set, taken today, have been added to the gallery.

Here’s a very first look at Meryl Streep in character on the set of “Great Hope Springs” in Connecticut. Edit: With many thanks to Martine, lots of additional pictures have been added!

According to this source, “Great Hope Springs” begins filming its scenes in Stonington next week, according to borough Warden Paul Burgess, and will continue until the following week. The shooting schedule, which was not finalized by Thursday afternoon, will not be made public, he said, due to security and crowd-control issues. Streep and Jones will be in the borough, but not comedian Carell, who has already shot his scenes inside his movie-set therapist’s office. “All of those office scenes have already been filmed in Norwalk,” said Burgess. Much of the film work will be done inside, but Burgess said it will still be obvious what is going on. This is not the first movie that has been at least partially shot inside Stonington’s borders. “Remains,” a post-apocalyptic zombie flick being produced for the “Chiller” network, was shot in Mystic earlier this year. More famously, “Mystic Pizza,” the movie that launched Julia Roberts’ career and still brings tourists to Mystic, brought Hollywood to Stonington in the late 1980s.

Here’s the official poster for the upcoming “The Iron Lady”. Doesn’t it look great?

Here’s a little tidbit from an interview with Abi Morgan, who penned the script for “The Iron Lady”, in The Independent. While the article is mostly about the British series “The Hour”, she briefly talks about working with Meryl on “The Iron Lady”.

Another Morgan-penned feature to be released in the new year is The Iron Lady, the hotly anticipated Thatcher biopic starring Meryl Streep. She found the actress to be hugely impressive: “I worked a little with her and she’s just amazing: so finely tuned in decision-making. The great gift of an actress like her is that she’s very down to earth, and true to what she does.”