Stepping into the shoes of an iconic figure that everyone feels they know was a challenge for Viola Davis, who joins Gillian Anderson and Michelle Pfeiffer in bringing America’s most influential women to life in The First Lady.
seems easily writ from the history books. But in the chapter and verse published on the lives of Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford and Michelle Obama – three wives of American presidents – none of it captures the transformational moment in 1993 when Eleanor, the wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, asked: “Can I have an office?” The answer came immediately back: “What would you do with one?”
Playing women who shaped the course of history, even in what the producers admit is a slightly fictionalised account of their lives, is a peculiar task. “In my experience, you don’t treat it like any other role,” Anderson says. “You take it a lot more seriously, and it does feel like there’s a lot more pressure. The amount of time that’s put into it [is not] necessarily more, but I think the focus of the time ends up being spent in different ways.
It is also challenging to tamper with women who the broader culture perceives as iconic, Davis says. “There is nothing about [them] that they want desiccated,” she says. “A lot of times, when you approach a character, you want their mess, but with Michelle Obama, there is a small window of exercising your creative input.”
The advantage Davis has is that unlike her co-stars, she had met Michelle Obama before taking on the role. Though she did not have a chance to meet her counterpart, Anderson felt able to find her movement and cadence in surviving film of her speeches and interviews. “I don’t begrudge the fact that she was not on social media,” Anderson says, with a smile. “There is enough footage that’s out there, and so much written about her, and in her own words.
“I’ve had an opportunity to play a lot of very sharp, serious, ambitious, forthright bosses, police officers, I’ve had the upper hand as characters in so many of the roles that I’ve played, and Eleanor really, really felt that she didn’t,” Anderson adds. “It really was a huge learning curve for her to feel that she had a voice, that she deserved a voice, that she had something to say.“Eleanor had grown up feeling that she had a back seat and women should have the back seat.
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