Actresses of a certain age often complain that the jobs have dried up. Not Meryl Streep. At 55, the screen icon is entering one of the busiest periods of her career. Hot from her acclaimed performance in Angels In America, she now appears as a corrupt politician in The Manchurian Candidate. Still to come are Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Ben "Boiler Room" Younger's Prime, Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, and Jodie Foster's long delayed Flora Plum, to name a few.

Remakes of classic films are always risky ventures. What do you think this version of The Manchurian Candidate brings to the table that's new?

This is sort of an homage to the original. That was very controlled, stylised, and in black and white. Ours takes ideas from it and wires them to the 24/7 news cycle, increasing the heartbeat and making the thing run faster, wider, and wilder. To be honest, there were things that I quarrelled with in Frankenheimer's film; I don't think a contemporary audience would accept that the actress playing the mother [Angela Lansbury] was three years older than her son [Laurence Harvey], or that she and her son were of a different nationality and spoke differently.

Who is the model for your character, Senator Eleanor Shaw? People have suggested Barbara Bush, Hilary Clinton, and even Margaret Thatcher.

It would be so nice and easy if there were one and she were female, wouldn't it? But I looked at a lot of different women in politics. Unfortunately, we don't have very many women senators in the United States, and pretty much all the women politicians share a look; there's a way of dressing always in a suit - pastel, soft colour, nothing too aggressive, no black, no navy, nothing - with earrings, necklace, and a pin. So, for the look of the outside, I looked at all of them and they all share this uniform. I was also very interested in a woman named Karen Hughes, who is an advisor to the president now and a very strong presence. But mostly I looked at the men because they are able to be ambitious without hiding it; they just deal directly and this is what I wanted to do.

Is America likely to ever have a female president?

I don't think that people in any country of the world are comfortable with women leaders. I think even in the countries where there have been women leaders, people were terrified of them. I've never read Freud but I'm sure it's in there. Fear of the mother, it's very deep in people.

Do you think a film or a documentary can change the way people think?

I don't know if anything has any effect on anybody. The advertising business does very well but I think people have grown leery of messages embedded in art or in so-called documentaries, and it's more difficult to find people who are willing to listen. Really, though, The Manchurian Candidate talks about issues that have beset people in political cultures from the time they invented corruption and money and leadership and dirty dealings. So it's for all time, I think.

The Manchurian Candidate is released in UK cinemas on Friday 19th November 2004.