- Michelle Pfeiffer stars in The Madison, premiering on Paramount+ on March 14.
- The 67-year-old actress admits it took some convincing for her to join the Taylor Sheridan series.
- She consulted Helen Mirren, star of ‘1923,’ to get her opinion.
Michelle Pfeiffer has a reputation for taking on dramatic roles, from Scarface and The Fabulous Baker Boys to Batman Returns and Dangerous Liaisons. While she’s proved time and time again that she’s no stranger to perfecting complex female characters, her latest role in Taylor Sheridan’s The Madison might just be one for the books. And as it turns out, if it weren’t for Helen Mirren, who played Cara Dutton in 1923, she might not have accepted the part.
On Tuesday, March 10, Michelle joined CBS Mornings to discuss her soon-to-debut show and how her role as the lead came to be. “Taylor Sheridan said he was interested in talking to me about something, but he said, ‘You have to come to Texas,’” Michelle revealed. “I said, ‘Well, yeah, great—send me something.’ And he said, ‘No, no; I don’t write. I want to cast this part first before I write it; I want to write it around the actress.’ So I said, ‘Ok.’ I went, and it was a nice meeting, and we had a couple of tequilas, and I left.”
A few weeks went by, and Michelle was uncertain where her conversation with Taylor was going. “For a couple of weeks, we went back and forth on whether or not I was going to get anything to read, and I realized I was going to lose that battle with him,” she shared. “So I called—I thought, ‘I have to know’—I called Helen and asked her about her experience. I’m going to Montana for a long time. So anyway, she said… glowing review: great scripts—perfect scripts—beautiful production, really organized, and having the time of her life. So that was—I said ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘If it’s good enough for Helen Mirren, then it’s definitely good enough for me.’”
The Madison premieres with three episodes on Saturday, March 14. Episodes four through six will drop on Saturday, March 21. The series is available to stream exclusively on Paramount+.
With the countdown on, Michelle and Taylor's fans can’t wait to see the new series and how Michelle brings it to life as Stacy Clyburn, the matriarch and main character. “I can’t wait to watch this—the trailer looks like Taylor S epic-ness and how lucky to have such a phenomenal cast,” one fan commented on CBS’s clip from the interview. “This goes to [the genius] of Taylor—she’s an amazing talent. [I] can’t wait to see what [he] creates with her character,” another fan remarked. “Taylor hires all of his boyhood crushes,” someone else joked.
