Meet the young Obamas in 'Southside With You'
LOS ANGELES — It’s one task to cinematically chronicle a presidency. But to retell the first couple’s first date? For that, you’re going to need actors who can convincingly pull off Barack and Michelle Obama in 1989.
That’s where Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter come in.
In Southside With You (in theaters Friday), the actors play Barack and Michelle (then Robinson) at 28 and 25, respectively, during a summer in which he worked for Michelle’s law firm as a first-year law associate in Chicago. The story goes that Barack asked her out, while Michelle (his adviser at the firm) repeatedly said no, until an afternoon visit to an art gallery turned into ice cream and a viewing of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
“We loved the idea of the film — how it captured this moment in time of this über-famous couple but also little-known aspects of their relationship,” says John Legend, who served as executive producer of the film and wrote and performs its featured song, Start.
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Director Richard Tanne, who launched the movie at Sundance Film Festival, says watching the Obamas inspired him to write the fictionalized love story. "Just the way they look into each other’s eyes, the way they flirt, the way they touch each other," he says. "It’s a rare thing to see a display of love that authentic, even in friends and family, let alone the president and the first lady.”
Audiences will likely find the casting eerily accurate.
“We researched the hair at the time and the outfit and her eyebrows,” says Sumpter, 36, who also produced Southside. “And I have her skin tone. We just wanted to make sure you knew, 'OK, that’s Michelle.' ”
But it’s when they found their Barack in Sawyers that the puzzle was complete.
Sawyers, 33, who was born in Indianapolis and lives in London with his wife and two children, says he’s been told he’s a double for the president since 2008. The actor pulls up an iPhone photo. "That's me at 23," he says. The resemblance is jaw-dropping.
“He sounds like him, too,” says Sumpter. “And he kind of has this swag of a Barack. When I met him, I was like, 'Stop doing that! You’re scaring me!' "
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Like Barack, “I’m quite smart, I’m very confident, but the confidence is built on real things,” says Sawyers, who says he has a photographic memory and spouts off spot-on impersonations of Kermit the Frog and Tim Gunn. “Not to say, ‘Oh, I’m so similar to Barack Obama,' because he’s amazing, but I know what I can do and I knew I could do this role."
The White House is aware of the movie but never gave implicit approval. "Their camp has seen (the script) and no one tried to stop us from making the film,” says Legend, who is friendly with the Obamas and has been invited to intimate dinners at the White House with wife Chrissy Teigen.
Those involved say the film isn’t meant to draw party lines. “It’s not a political movie,” says Sumpter. “There’s no policy in the movie. It’s literally about a guy trying to get a girl.”
Will they approve? “They have been sent it,” says Legend. “So hopefully they’ll watch it soon.”
Sumpter, now seven months' pregnant with a baby girl, smiles. “Hopefully, Sasha and Malia like it.”
