Viola Davis to play Michelle Obama in Showtime's First Ladies anthology series

Deadline

The How to Get Away with Murder star will star in and executive produce an anthology series focusing on the first ladies of the United States. Season 1 will focus on Michelle Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Ford. Written by Aaron Cooley, First Ladies is "set in the East Wing of the White House, where many of history’s most impactful and world changing decisions have been hidden from view, made by America’s charismatic, complex and dynamic First Ladies," per Deadline. "The series will peel back the curtain on the personal and political lives of our most enigmatic heroes." Executive producer Cathy Schulman was inspired to do the series after reading Cooley's spec script on late First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She wanted to look at American History presidencies through a female lens.