Actors love to play controversial people. For one thing, it is a creative challenge to interpret a familiar personality, also, it is also, there is always an audience. If you do a bad job, it is tossed into the bargain video bins, but a good rendering will get Oscar consideration.

The role of Richard Nixon in the play and later movie, "Frost/Nixon"(Nixon was at least as controversial a character as Mrs. Thatcher) is another case in point. I saw Frank Langella play Nixon on Broadway, and then went home and watched the actual interviews, and thought that Langella was a more believable Nixon than Nixon was....