Robin Wright, currently playing Machiavellian first lady Claire Underwood on Netflix’s House of Cards, will be taking on the legacies of women who’ve actually held the office, Deadline reports. Pacific Standard and Anonymous Content are co-producing a TV adaptation of First Women: The Grace & Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, Kate Anderson Brower’s book about the women who’ve held the position since Jacqueline Kennedy. Brower, a former White House correspondent, offers portraits of 10 first ladies, including one who may be our president by the time the show is produced. Wright is going to both executive-produce and direct the series.
Reese Witherspoon will also be executive-producing (Pacific Standard is her production company), along with Michael Sugar and Bruna Papandrea from Anonymous Content. It remains to be seen if Robin Wright’s history playing Underwood will give her into the lives of warm and friendly first ladies like Nancy Reagan, whose tirades against the White House staff Brower documented in her earlier best-seller, The Residence. Fingers crossed the series works out, though: Claire Underwood doesn’t react well to failure.
