After her five-year and six-season run on How To Get Away with Murder comes to an end, Viola Davis will add another leading role under her belt. The Academy Award-winning actress has signed on to play former FLOTUS Michelle Obama in a Showtime series First Ladies.
Variety reports the scripted television-drama focus on history-making women as the first season will be focused on first ladies in the White House like Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford and Obama, who became the nation’s first African-American first lady.
The drama will “turn its lens on the East Wing of the White House, as opposed to the West, where many of history’s most impactful and world-changing decisions have been hidden from view,” as reported by the outlet.
Davis will serve as a non-writing executive producer alongside her partner Julius Tennon through their JuVee Productions. She recently spoke at Variety’s Inclusion Summit this year to discuss her upcoming roles, projects, and people of color in today’s Hollywood.
“If you look to the past and look at storytelling where there’s a huge deficit in terms of our voice and our presence, that’s not a good place to start,” she said. “What we have to fight for, and this is what I’m proud about with JuVee, is autonomy in storytelling and production.”
Davis won her first Academy Award in 2017 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, where she starred as Rose Maxson in Fences.
A release date has not been announced for the upcoming series.
