Actors Parker Sawyers (Zero Dark Thirty) and Tika Sumpter (“The Haves and the Have Nots”) have been cast as Barack and Michelle Obama in a forthcoming romance film about the couple’s first date.
Tentatively titled Southside With You, the film centers around the Obamas’ first outing in 1989, when Obama and lawyer Michelle Robinson visited the Art Institute of Chicago where they viewed a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. The duo were also rumored to have shared their first kiss that night outside an ice cream parlour.
At the time, Obama was a first-year Harvard Law student working as an associate at a Chicago-based law firm, Sidley Austin, where the younger Robinson was his supervisor. The Obamas later married in 1992.
Directed by Richard Tanne (best known for comedy Worst Friends), the highly anticipated flick, described as a romantic comedy, is expected to begin shooting in Chicago in August, with Tanne working from his own screenplay. Sawyers, who’s had small roles in Zero Dark Thirty and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is also due to star in Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden biopic Snowden.
As for Sumpter, she played the singer Yvonne Fair in James Brown biopic Get On Up. She’s also appeared in comedies like Ride Along and My Man Is a Loser.
As previously reported, Deadline stated that Southside With You would follow the format of the Richard Linklater romance Before Sunrise, which details the 24-hour encounter of a young American man and French woman as they get to know each other during a day in Vienna.
What do you think of veteran Sumpter nabbing the Michelle Obama role? Do you think Sawyers has the chops to take on the role of Barack? Sound off in the comment section below.
