Michelle Pfeiffer (Scarface) has officially signed on to play former First Lady of the United States Betty Ford in the Showtime anthology series entitled The First Lady, alongside Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder, The Help) who is slated to play the role of Michelle Obama, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Susanne Bier (The Night Manager, The Undoing) has also agreed to direct each episode of the anthology.
The series will center around first ladies Obama, Ford, and Roosevelt and the “roles they played in shaping impactful and sometimes world-changing, decisions during their time in the White House,” via The Hollywood Reporter. Pfeiffer’s role as Ford will mark her first as a series regular since the beginning of her career. Ford was most well-known for her role in raising awareness of substance abuse, coming forward about her own struggle with alcoholism.
Amy Israel (In Time), Executive Vice President of Scripted Programming at Showtime, said in a statement regarding the upcoming series and the extreme capabilities of the aforementioned actresses to play such iconic roles, “Michelle Pfeiffer and Susanne Bier have joined the brilliant and incomparable Viola Davis to bring the remarkable stories of these women into urgent, engrossing, and long overdue focus….Michelle brings authenticity, vulnerability, and complexity to all her roles, and Susanne is a visionary director who commands the screen with a fierce honest and a singular visual style. With these formidable artists in front of and behind the camera, we couldn’t be more thrilled – especially at this unique moment in time for our nation – about the powerful promise of The First Lady,” via The Hollywood Reporter.
Pfeiffer was the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 1990 for her role in The Fabulous Baker Boys as well as an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 2017 for her role in Fences while Davis was awarded a Screen Actors Guild Award for an Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in 2012 for her role in The Help and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2015 for her role in How To Get Away With Murder. The role of Roosevelt has not yet been cast and further information regarding the official release date of the series is yet to be revealed.