First Ladies: Oscar-winner Viola Davis to play Michelle Obama in new political drama

The Showtime series will focus on Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Ford for its first season

Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis has been cast to play Michelle Obama in new political TV drama First Ladies.

Davis, who won an Academy Award for her performance in Fences, will also executive produce the Showtime series which looks at the personal and political lives of first ladies of the past.

Season one of First Ladies will focus on Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Ford and will give insight into the White House’s East Wing, “where many of history’s most impactful and world-changing decisions have been hidden from view, made by America’s charismatic, complex and dynamic First Ladies,” according to the show’s official description.

It is yet to be announced which actors will play Roosevelt and Ford.

Novelist Aaron Cooley pens the series and also serves as an executive producer with Davis, who is a friend of the Obamas.

Davis currently stars in the ABC drama How to Get Away with Murder and is filming Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom with Chadwick Boseman. She is also set to take on the role of Shirley Chisholm in an Amazon biopic of the first woman and person of colour to run for president.