Showtime's The First Lady trailer has Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt, but no Abigail Fillmore

Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson portray Obama, Ford, and Roosevelt in the anthology series

Showtime's The First Lady trailer has Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt, but no Abigail Fillmore
Viola Davis as Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford, and Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt. Screenshot: Showtime

It’s a great time to be a TV viewer whose primary requirement for entertainment is famous actors convincingly pretending to be other celebrities. After watching Lily James and Sebastian Stan turn themselves into Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee and a great swath of actors dying their blood blue to play pretend members of the royal family on The Crown, Showtime is finally getting ready to show us the line-up of notable impressions it’s prepared for the upcoming anthology series The First Lady.

A new trailer for the show, which is executive produced and directed in its entirety by Susanne Bier (The Undoing), shows off The First Lady’s take on Michelle Obama (played by Viola Davis), Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson). In the scenes excerpted for the clip, we have Davis performing an uncannily accurate Michelle Obama, Pfeiffer embodying Betty Ford, and Anderson debuting a Mid-Atlantic accent as she plays Eleanor Roosevelt.

The 10-episode first season will focus on Obama, Ford, and Roosevelt and be told, per a press release, “through interweaving storylines” tracing “the personal and political lives” of its main characters.

Davis, Pfeiffer, and Anderson aren’t the only cast members playing pretend politics. The First Lady also includes Aaron Eckhart as Gerald Ford, Keifer Sutherland as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dakota Fanning as Susan Elizabeth Ford. (Regina Taylor, Lily Rabe, Jayme Lawson, O-T Fagbenle, Judy Greer, Ellen Burstyn, Jackie Earle Haley, and others will also appear in the series.)

Unfortunately, even despite this wide-ranging line-up of actors, there is no word yet on whether further seasons of The First Lady will be made to give the people what they really want: A full 10 hours of television about someone dressed up as Julia Tyler introducing polka dancing to the White House.

The First Lady will premiere on Sunday, April 17th.

 
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