In The First Lady, Viola Davis plays Michelle Obama.
It appears that playing the First Lady on television was more than enough for these actresses.
At the First Lady’s red carpet on April 14, Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson exclusively revealed whether they would take on the role in real life with E! News’ Francesca Amiker.
“I’m not interested,” Pfeiffer, who plays First Lady Betty Ford in the new Showtime series, said. “Perhaps the President.”
Nonetheless, the Oscar-nominated actress is looking forward to viewers discovering “how fascinating” Ford was.
She ran a command center in the White House to lobby for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, and she discussed a lot of very hot-button subjects that were just not discussed, Pfeiffer explained. “Breast cancer”—it was embarrassing to talk about it, so she saved a lot of lives.
Anderson, who plays Eleanor Roosevelt, has no plans to move into the White House any time soon. She said “Hell no” when Amiker asked.
Anderson said of Roosevelt, “She was an extraordinary human being.” And so, any time you get to step into the shoes of someone like that, you can’t help but absorb—on the one hand, feeling like I’m not worthy, and then feeling like you can only learn, and if you even learn a modicum of that kind of grace and humanity, that’s a miracle.”
Davis, who played Michelle Obama with O.T. Fagbenle as former President Barack Obama, also had a good time as the First Lady for a short time.
“She is courageous. And in this day and age, I admire brave people, “Davis stated. “I believe it’s akin to discovering a diamond in the rough.”
During the interview, Davis said that Michelle Obama wished her luck and gave her some words of advice before she started filming. Davis isn’t going to say what those words of advice were, though.
“I don’t know,” Davis said of who she would like to play herself in a future biopic. “She needs to be discovered.”