Michelle Pfeiffer to play Betty Ford in Showtime's The First Lady anthology series

The cast of Showtime’s upcoming anthology series The First Lady (formerly known as First Ladies) is coming together, with Deadline reporting that Michelle Pfeiffer will be playing Betty Ford and that The Undoing’s Susanne Bier will be directing. The series is a “revelatory reframing of American leadership,” emphasizing “the women at the heart of the White House,” with this first season focusing on Betty Ford, Michelle Obama, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

We learned a while ago that Viola Davis would be playing Obama, but that and this new Pfeiffer-as-Ford casting are still all we seem to know about which famous people will be playing these other famous people. Roosevelt will presumably be played by another big name, but it’ll be interesting to see how Showtime handles casting the presidents these women are married to. After all, the show’s official plot synopsis implies that they won’t be getting much of the spotlight. Maybe Bier can call in some Undoing favors and get Hugh Grant to play Gerald Ford? That would be a lot of fun.

On a related note, seeing as how we’re still a First Lady short, we don’t know when this thing is going to air. Showtime is clearly putting some weight behind it with Davis and Pfeiffer and Bier, though, so it’s most likely not going to rush into anything (also, there’s whole pandemic thing going on).