Meryl Streep might be in final negotiations to join Suffragette in the small but important role of Emmeline Pankhurst.
Streep is the third big name we’ve heard associated with the project, with Carey Mulligan set to star and Helena Bonham Carter in talks for a co-starring role. So far, the film has only been described as being about “the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.”
While Streep’s role will be small, it will be vital, as Parkhurst gives a powerful speech about women’s rights during a political rally.
In 1999, Time magazine named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. She founded the Women’s Social and Political Union and her protests earned her time in prison, where she and other members staged hunger strikes to secure better conditions.
Parkhust’s Women’s Social and Political Union was infamous for smashing windows and striking police officers, as she saw imprisonment as a good way to publicize the cause of women’s suffrage. Other tactics that gained Parkhurst’s support, if not coming directly from her command, included arson. And I’ll just leave this quote from her wikipedia page here: “One WSPU member, for example, put a small hatchet into the Prime Minister’s carriage inscribed with the words: “Votes for Women,” and other suffragettes used acid to burn the same slogan into golf courses used by MPs.”
Suffragette, formerly going by the name The Fury, which makes a lot more sense now, was written by Abi Morgan, whose writing credits include Streep’s The Iron Lady, and Shame. It will be directed by Sarah Gavron.
(photo credit Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters, story via The Wrap.)
