Suffragette premiere: Anne-Marie Duff backs ‘inspiring’ red carpet protesters

She explained: “We are all the same”.

The focus of the film is on the years 1912-13 when, after years of mainly civil disobedience, the suffragettes turned to more militant tactics, such as mass smashing of shop windows in London’s West End, vandalising pillar boxes, cutting telephone wires and setting fire to empty buildings.

The group held signs that read, among other things, “Dead Women Can’t Vote”, “They Cut We Bleed”, and “Women Are Powerful and unsafe”.

The period drama, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan, tells the story of the British women’s suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, with Streep playing British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

Activist Deray McKesson wrote on Twitter: “Meryl Streep has to know better”.

Shanice McBean, 22, was among the protesters who said the stunt was meant to re-ignite the feminist spirit of the movie by spotlighting violence against women. It made history as the first film to be shot inside the Houses of Parliament.

While it has not yet been confirmed whether the protest was in response to the film itself, it appears that it may have at least in a few part been inspired by its message.

She said: “I have been so lucky to grow up in a generation- and in a family – where I haven’t had to fight”. Suffragette also features Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, Natalie Press as Emily Davison, the activist who died at the 1913 Epsom Derby; and Helena Bonham Carter as Edith Ellyn, an amalgamation of more than one prominent suffragette.

Carey Mulligan’s (Far from the Madding Crowd, Inside Llewyn Davis) Maud Watts – who works in a laundry in 1912 London here – stands up a little straighter in a mirror and finds new pride and objective in her life as she slowly becomes radicalized into the suffragette movement… and that’s a transformation that girls and women everywhere today will recognize and appreciate.

Saying she wanted to investigate “buzz”, and how people decided which films to see, Streep cited the reviews aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes for its skewed gender balance, saying she tabulated 168 women critics and bloggers on the site, as opposed to a few 760 men.

As I my steady my hands on the metal barrier, I try to size up the massive security guard who has irritatingly placed himself right in front of me.

Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan will open the 2015 BFI London Film Festival, with the European premiere of their new film Suffragette. “Sometimes they like the same things, but their tastes diverge”. It doesn’t matter what bits of flesh we have – we are all equal. “Hopefully the film will inspire anybody who feels an injustice has been done, to be bold enough to protest”. She doubled down on that stance when The Daily Beast asked her to clarify her remarks.

The brunette beauty looked glowing in a ruffled dress, showing off her toned figure and slim legs in the edgy number.