How Viola Davis Transformed Into Michelle Obama in ‘The First Lady’
Showtime’s new miniseries The First Lady, which spotlights the personal and professional lives of Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt before and during the years their husbands occupied the Oval Office, is gearing up to be one of the most talked-about and surprisingly controversial additions to this spring’s packed television lineup. Before folks online had things to say about Viola Davis’ impression of Obama and some of the pilot’s dialogue, photos of the Oscar-winner donning razor-thin eyebrows and a subtle smokey eye—and, of course, emulating the former first lady’s pursed lips—garnered tons of excitement about the time-jumping anthology series.
Credit for the show’s uncanny representations of the iconic first ladies, including Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford and Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt, goes to veteran makeup designer Carol Rasheed, whose three decades of experience and previous work on biopics is on full display throughout the series, as well as a fearless team of makeup artists tackling the show’s illustrious figures—including Kiefer Sutherland, whose Franklin D. Roosevelt required a thickened neck, and O-T Fagbenle’s Barack Obama, who received prosthetic ears.
Recreating the appearances of The First Lady’s three subjects required a personal makeup artist for each actress, with Sergio Lopez-Rivera in charge of Davis’ transformation, Valli O’Reilly assigned to Pfeiffer, and Julie Kendrick working on Anderson. As makeup department head, Rasheed conducted extensive research into multiple time periods and collaborated with the costume and hair departments to make sure their contributions were cohesive. The result is more natural, refined and restrained than the cartoonish transformations you see in some big-budget movies, allowing the actors to meld into their guises without being consumed by them.