Two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning actor Cate Blanchett has signed on to star in Mrs. America, a new limited series ordered by FX.
The limited series was created and written by Emmy Award winning writer Dahvi Waller (Mad Men) and Executive Produced by two-time Academy Award nominee Stacey Sher, Waller, Coco Francini and Blanchett.
Production of the nine-episode limited series is scheduled for 2019 and it is produced by FX Productions with Waller serving as Showrunner.
Mrs. America tells the true story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and the unexpected backlash led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly, played by Cate Blanchett.
Through the eyes of the women of that era – both Schlafly and second wave feminists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug and Jill Ruckelshaus – the series explores how one of the toughest battlegrounds in the culture wars of the 70s helped give rise to the Moral Majority and forever shifted our political landscape.
Mrs. America will mark Blanchett’s first role in an American television program.
“I feel privileged to have this opportunity to collaborate with Dahvi, Stacey and Coco under the robust and fearless FX umbrella,” said Blanchett. “I am extremely excited about delving into the material as there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to peel back the layers of this recent period of history, which couldn’t be more relevant today.”
**Photo courtesy of Steven Chee**