Gillian Anderson may be portraying Eleanor Roosevelt in Showtime’s upcoming series, The First Lady. The actress already met a President many years ago.
The X-Files actress recalled her meeting with former President Bill Clinton in 1992 during a chat on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Tuesday evening.
Anderson admitted that she so awestruck by Clinton, that she wanted him to phone her afterwards.
“He did the most miraculous thing in the world, he shakes your hand, then he grabs your elbow and at the same time he holds your arm further up,” she told Kimmel.
“[It was a] slightly intimate little thing. He makes eye contact. And he moves on to the next person. Then he looks back at you.”
Anderson said that their meeting wasn’t so special for the politician, who was used to that kind of encounters. However, she still expected a phone call from him afterwards.
“I went home, I thought – this was in the days of answering machines – I literally thought that I was going to go home to a message from him,” she added. “I did. It was that real.”
After Anderson and Clinton parted ways, she joked that she had a foothold in his success to becoming president.
“Then did you vote for him after that?” Kimmel wondered.
“Yes, I did,” Anderson stated.
Anderson’s new project, The First Lady, follows three of the most famous First Ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt (Anderson), Michelle Obama (played by Viola Davis) and Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer).
The series will take a look at the monumental presidencies of Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford throughout three separate decades.
The anthology will take watchers through the viewpoints of the women who really run the show behind the curtain.