Michelle Obama

Some viewers said Davis was overly pursing her lips, with many complaining her facial expressions were distracting and insulting.

Speaking to BBC News, Davis said it is "incredibly hurtful when people say negative things about your work".

Criticism, she acknowledged, was an "occupational hazard" of acting.

"How do you move on from the hurt, from failure?" the 56-year-old asked. "But you have to. Not everything is going to be an awards-worthy performance."

First Lady, which will air later this year, will explore the lives of the women married to three US presidents.

The 10-part series will also star Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford and Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt.

It is described as a "revelatory reframing of American leadership, told through the lens of the women at the heart of the White House".

Davis won an Oscar in 2017 for Fences, and is also known for the films The Help, Widows and Suicide Squad, and the TV show How to Get Away with Murder.

Mrs Obama spoke to NBC's Today show about Meghan and Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Meghan and Harry had opened up about a range of personal topics, including racism and mental health.

Meghan said Harry had been asked by an unnamed royal family member "how dark" their son Archie's skin might be.

Buckingham Palace said the race issues raised by Meghan, 39, and Harry, 36, were "concerning", and would be "taken very seriously" and dealt with privately.

Mrs Obama will play a supermarket owner opposite Waffles and Mochi, who are from The Land of Frozen Food.

The former US first lady described the series, which is titled Waffles + Mochi and drops next month, as a "hilarious, heartwarming, and simply magical show".

She and husband Barack are among the executive producers.

The couple signed a deal to produce series and films for Netflix in 2018. The resulting works have included Becoming, the 2020 documentary based on her best-selling autobiography.

The premium cable network has ordered one-hour drama "First Ladies" from Viola Davis' JuVee Productions that would star the Oscar winner as former first lady Michelle Obama.

The focus of the first season, which will "peel back the curtain on the personal and political lives of these enigmatic women," according to Showtime, will revolve around Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Ford.

The other two main characters have not yet been cast.

International market research firm YouGov published its annual study of the most admired public figures in the world earlier this month.

The Q&A at an architecture convention in Orlando came days after her husband made his first public comments as ex-president at a Chicago university.

Mrs Obama, who left office with a 68% approval rating (10% more than her husband) said "politics is tough."

"It's all well and good until you start running, and then the knives come out."

But the mural, by Chicago artist Chris Devins, has sparked intense debate -- and not for the usual political reasons.

Shortly after Devins finished the mural last Friday, criticism began bubbling up online. People accused him of copying the image from Rhode Island art student Gelila Mesfin, who had posted a nearly identical portrait of Michelle Obama on Instagram last year.

News of the mural's existence came as a huge surprise to Mesfin, too.

Actress Lily Collins took to Instagram to express her excitement about receiving a special missive.

"I can't believe this letter I received from someone I deeply respect and admire," Collins said in the caption to a video she posted. "It's absolutely epic. I'm in complete shock but just had to share!"

Collins then proceeded to read a letter she received from former first lady Michelle Obama.

In the midst of writing her memoir, Obama, apparently, also penned a note of thanks to Collins for her book "Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me."

We've seen her sport the pin-straight lob, the pulled-back updos and wavy tresses, but we've never seen her hair in its natural state—until now.

A photo of the former FLOTUS in her natural hair recently surfaced on Twitter.