To celebrate the release of Designated Survivor The Complete Second Season DVD on Monday October 1 (eOne) and the news that it will be back for a third season on Netflix, we take a look at our favourite on screen Presidents who have a lot to live up to, given real life is sometimes much stranger than fiction...
Robin Wright as Claire Underwood
It’s not exactly known yet how the next series of House Of Cards is going to go, following the abrupt departure of former star Kevin Spacey, who played Frank Underwood. The character’s meteoric and nefarious rise to the highest office in the free world was match only by the allegations swirling around the actor. But if rumour and speculation are anything to go by, she will follow in her husband’s footsteps and ascend to the throne. More power to Wright and Mrs Underwood too – as Frank descended into caricature in recent series, Claire’s steely resolve and ruthless ambition was not only more intriguing than her partner’s, it was more plausible too.
Kiefer Sutherland as Tom Kirkman
Kiefer Sutherland, who went from big to smaller screen with consummate ease as Jack Bauer, has gone from ensuring the president’s safety in 24 to actually running the show in Designated Survivor. After finding himself at the helm following a brutal attack that slaughtered pretty much every minister in the US government, he has grown into the role despite many initial misgivings in the first series. But in the second, the challenges facing him and his team soon pile up. He’s facing everything from continued terrorist threat to problems penning a speech any the light-hearted White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Oh, and there’s still the small matter of catching the perpetrators of the attack that put him in charge…
Martin Sheen as Jed Bartlet
And, as each day of Donald J Trump’s presidency day passes with another wealth of preposterous tweets and dysfunctional behaviour that shames and embarrasses many Americans, so people look wistfully to Martin Sheen’s sympathetic leader in seminal US TV series The West Wing and think “why, oh why, can’t President Bartlet be in charge?”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer
Hillary may have failed in real life, but, as ever, when the public wants something it can always turn to TV… And thus The Thick Of It creator Armando Ianucci turned to the US after the UK, skewering labyrinthine machinations in Washington DC for a similarly biting political satire, Veep. Julia Louis-Drefus furthers its impeccable credentials starring as Selina Meyer, who makes her way to the top job after a stint as the title Vice President. Ousted after Machiavellian plotting, she will be back in the saddle and running for top job again come 2019 for the seventh and final outing of this fine comedy…
Aaron Eckhart as Benjamin Asher
Aah, the dear old action film. The President has long been a mainstay of not-quite-straight-to-video, not quite blockbuster action fare for years, from Donald Pleasence’s president trapped in a city turned into a jail (Escape From New York) to Bill Pullman’s unlikely fighter pilot turned leader taking on aliens in Independence Day. Most recent has been Aaron Eckhart, who also gets to show off his action chops alongside his secret agent protector Gerard Butler, first in the White House itself (Olympus Has Fallen) and then on foreign soil (London Has Fallen). Eckhart will be replaced as the leader of the free world in the next instalment, Angel Has Fallen, by Morgan Freeman, a true president in waiting if ever there was one, due at cinemas in 2019…