Michelle Pfeiffer will star in a new Showtime original show called “The First Lady,” which will premiere on April 17. According to Pfeiffer, she agreed to star in the Showtime series The First Lady before she had even read the script in a recent interview with Today, on Thursday.
Pfeiffer said: “I knew about — like most people — she’s very famous for the Betty Ford clinic, which has, again, saved hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, And, obviously, her issues with substance abuse. So that, in and of itself, was a really interesting story to tell. And I felt really important. When Susanne Bier— the director that I was anxious to work with — called, all she said to me was ‘I’m doing a project on the first ladies and I’d like you to play Betty Ford. And I said ‘I’m in.”
Further on praising the former first lady, Pfeiffer says “She really saved millions of lives “. She acknowledged that the former first lady had struggled with chronic pain, alcoholism, and breast cancer. “And I think because she was so honest, there was an honesty about her, and people trusted her.”The series takes a peek into the lives of several first ladies throughout history, exploring their time as the first lady and their journey towards that title. Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt will also be covered. Dakota Fanning plays the character of Susan Ford, daughter of Betty and Gerald Ford.
Talking about the popularity of Ford Pfeiffer added: “She was really popular, and it was because of her candor and because she was so open and transparent about her struggles, first of all. She talked about — freely — subject matter that was very taboo at the time. She talked about breast cancer — her own breast cancer. Nobody was getting screenings at the time.”