Viola Davis‘turn Michelle Obama For a new show, there are some early looks, and at the same time… some early irony too at the obvious character choice she’s made.
The Showtime series “First Lady” kicked off on Sunday, and some people on Twitter seem to have already gotten some initial glimpses of Viola playing Michelle… and some are wondering why the actress seems to be constantly holding her lips in front of the camera.
One scene in particular attracted a lot of eyeballs, and people are spending a field day with memes and jokes on Viola who seems to be constantly putting on an exaggerated duck face as she talks to TV Barack Obama.
There’s another scene that surfaces, which shows Viola as Michelle posing for a photo, and there’s also that she seems to be rocking the kissing pose with dedication.
While it’s unclear if Viola maintains that facial expression throughout the show – as far as we know, these are the only two viewers doing the rounds at the moment – she does seem to invoke lip movement later in the series as well… evidenced in the footage Viola posted By herself on social media for the past few weeks.
Michelle, in fact, does save her lips on occasion…but it seems Viola probably thought that was central to her existence,” because so far–she seems to be doing it quite a bit for ‘TFL.’
As for how critics feel about it… it’s not very good on that front either. The “first lady” has a rotten tomatoes 40% result, made up of 20 different pros weighed so far. These reviews don’t always reflect the quality of any particular movie or show, but it seems the industry isn’t too happy with what they’ve done here to tell Michelle’s story.
Like we said, the show is starting to stream today – so feel free to take a look at it for yourself. There will be 10 episodes of this performance, so maybe it gets better…? Time will tell.
FWIW, Viola was taking the role very seriously – despite what people online might say/think now it’s over – and said she was nervous and wanted to make MO look good.
In February, VD was quoted as saying… “You don’t want to insult them with your portrayal… as much as we feel we know Michelle Obama – and I’ve done everything I can to research – there are these special people moments where there is a certain level of creative decision making that you have to Take it… There are small details that I can get creative with and hope I don’t offend her with that. That’s what you have to navigate as an artist.”
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