At one point, Margaret Thatcher is shown making ice cream to give to a voter as part of an election campaign. In her early career, Thatcher was actually a chemist who was involved in developing the emulsifier for that particular type of ice cream.
The film was not welcome in some areas where Margaret Thatcher was very unpopular. The town cinema in Barnsley refused to show it. In Chesterfield, a group opposed to the movie picketed outside the cinema.
Meryl Streep earned $1,000,000 for her work in this film; however, she donated her entire salary to the Women's History Museum.
Meryl Streep prepared for the role by spending months watching broadcasts of Margaret Thatcher to learn her mannerisms and speech. She also spoke to dozens of people who knew her, including former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, who faced Thatcher in the House of Commons for seven years.
Meryl Streep never met Margaret Thatcher. She attended one of her lectures in 2001 at Northwestern University, in Evanston, IL, United States where Streep's own daughter Mamie Gummer was a student.