It is easy to see why Daisy Head may very well have the world at her feet. She is the daughter of well-known actor Anthony Head, and her sister Emily is becoming one of the faces of The Inbetweeners, playing Simon’s love interest, Carli. Daisy certainly doesn’t lack confidence, inspiration, or a spring in her step as she spoke to Toonari Post about her hopes for her future in the acting industry.

Talking to her, it was easy to forget Daisy is the same age as me. She seemed to have a very good idea of where she would like to go and what she would like to do, and has the confidence and backing to make it all the way. Daisy was raised in Somerset, England but since her dad was one of the stars of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer as she was growing up, a lot of her time was spent in Hollywood, watching, learning and being inspired by what was around her.

“Of course, my dad has been a big influence on me,” said Daisy as she recalled her younger days. “It was something I got into at a young age and he’s been a real help in me becoming an actress.”

Daisy trained in theater and dance and did a lot of theater work growing up in Bath, Engalnd at the Theater Royal near her home. She landed her first TV role ten years ago in the British crime drama Rose and Maloney, before going on to appear in ITV’s Trial & Retribution, Doc Martin and several episodes of British medical drama Holby City. Her break came in 2010 when she appeared in the Rules of Love musical, and she went on to appear in her first film, The Last Seven, alongside the likes of Danny Dyer.

“It was great to be involved in a film, I wasn’t star struck, it wasn’t a big budget thriller so it felt much easier to be a part of, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was very professional,” Daisy recalled.

The 20-year-old revealed she had just missed out on a lead role in a film in 2012. She couldn’t reveal the name of the film, but being considered for lead roles shows how Daisy has progressed and matured in the last few years. At the beginning of 2012 she appeared in the TV movie Endeavour on ITV, and the spin-off to Inspector Morse, playing Jenny Crisp in a cast that included Michael Matus, Shaun Evans, Jenna Harrison and Danny Webb. Endeavour received positive reviews and Daisy was only too happy to play her part.

“It was fabulous to be a part of, it was such a great cast and it was brilliant to film,” she said. “I played a young girl with a good role in the story, it was really enjoyable to be around the cast and I’d love to do something similar again.”

She has certainly followed in the footsteps of her sister by appearing in shows such as British comedy drama Doc Martin and Trial & Retribution, but Daisy is part of a close-knit family and the support is clearly strong as she appears at premieres with both Emily and her father regularly.

Despite her recent break into the world of film and TV, Daisy is still keen to continue her roles in theater production, and is returning to Los Angeles in a few weeks to further enhance her skills and knowledge of theater in the States.

“It’s something I’ve always loved doing and I definitely want to keep going,” she said, referring to her passion for theater. “I’m going back to America this month and hopefully I can get a lot out of it.”

To her credit, Daisy is not getting ahead of herself. When asked about her hopes for the next few years, she accepted that it is an unpredictable industry and doesn’t want to put a marker on where she wants to be in five or ten years’ time.

“I think it’s difficult to say, I’m very lucky to have had the roles I have been given and the backing I’ve had from my family is always something which makes me want to continue. But you can’t predict where you’ll be because you don’t know what’s going to come up. I’d love to continue doing what I’ve done so far, theatre and TV but I just want to take things one step at a time.”

Daisy is clearly a very level-headed girl, and as said before, for someone her age it is a credit to her that she is keeping her feet well on the ground. From talking to her, it seems certain that whether it is in England or in the US,  Daisy has a big future in acting.

Image Courtesy  of  Featureflash / Shutterstock.com

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When I first heard that they were making a movie about Margaret Thatcher, I was worried. Even though it has been more than 20 years since she stepped down as Prime Minister, she remains a hugely controversial figure. To the right, she is a goddess; the woman who almost single-handedly put the ‘Great’ back in Great Britain and turned back the tide of socialism.

To the left, she is a demon; the woman who brutalized striking miners and drove the country to riot over the unpopular poll tax. I was afraid that ‘The Iron Lady’ would portray her as one of those two caricatures. Although that was not the case, the film ultimately proved to be something of a disappointment.

The Iron Lady begins in the present day, as a frail Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) goes to buy a pint of milk. When she returns home, she proceeds to sit down to breakfast with her husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). They talk and joke, but it soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems.

When one of Thatcher’s caretakers enters the kitchen, we are shown a POV shot from her perspective, which reveals that Thatcher is actually sitting alone. Throughout the rest of the film, Thatcher will interact with her dead husband, and although her caretakers believe this is a side-effect of her dementia, it is strongly implied that this is actually a conscious coping mechanism Thatcher has created to deal with her grief.

Thatcher starts to reminisce about her past, and we see her memories in the form of flashbacks. At first, they are merely a disconnected series of vignettes, but they eventually run together and form a continuous narrative. We watch as a young middle-class grocer’s daughter tries to break into the aristocratic, male-dominated Tory party.

When she eventually wins a seat in Parliament, we see her struggle to fit in as one of the few female MPs. Eventually, she gains her footing, and rises from Secretary of State for Education to Leader of the Conservative Party to Prime Minister. Along the way, she is motivated by an apparently earnest desire to “do something” and change Britain for the better. But her passion turns to dogmatism, and her relationship with her Cabinet, and the British people, steadily deteriorate.

The intertwining of these two storylines, past and present, could make for incredibly compelling cinema, but in this case, it falls flat. The political storyline is probably the weaker of the two. Because it is told as a series of flashbacks, it never really develops into a satisfying narrative.

Instead, we see a series of vignettes: Thatcher on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street after winning her first term as Prime Minister, Thatcher deciding to go to war over the Falkland Islands, Thatcher humiliating her deputy, Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head) and causing a chain of events that leads to her own downfall. But these episodes are often presented without context, which greatly lessens their impact.

The most striking example of this is the scene where Thatcher’s close friend Airey Neave (Nicholas Farrell) is killed by a car bomb. Because the two of them only shared a few scenes together, the emotional impact of his sudden death is greatly diminished. The scenes with Geoffrey Howe are also curiously bland. His resignation would have been much more powerful if the viewer had realized that he had been in Thatcher’s Cabinet since the very beginning, and had been one of her most trusted lieutenants.

The film does deserve praise for its even-handed treatment of Thatcher’s politics. She is portrayed as neither the savior-goddess of the right or the vicious harridan of the left. It would have been easy to resort to caricature, but The Iron Lady does a nice job of emphasizing Thatcher’s humanity in both storylines.

Meryl Streep definitely deserves praise for her performance as Thatcher. She has done an excellent job of copying Thatcher’s voice, a feat made even more incredible by the fact that Streep is not a British actress. The makeup department was similarly adept at making her look like Thatcher.

Streep’s performance has garnered her an Oscar nomination, and it’s richly deserved. Jim Broadbent also did a fine job portraying Denis Thatcher. He captures Denis’ bombast and irreverence quite well. Anthony Head is sadly underutilized though. He deserved a much bigger role.

The Iron Lady could have been an excellent film had it focused on either Thatcher’s political story, or her personal struggles as she copes with old age and the loss of her husband. But by trying to do both, it bites off more than it can chew.

OVERALL GRADE: B

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