Report: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers Cast as Obamas
We've seen plenty of presidential biopics, but a rom-com about our Commander-in-Chief and the First Lady? It's finally happening. The American love story that is Barack and Michelle Obama will get the big screen treatment in Southside With You, starring Parker Sawyers as a young, idealistic Obama, and Tika Sumpter as Michelle Robinson, a law associate who accepts his invitation to go on a date.
The movie will center on that all-important first date in 1989, following the couple to the Art Institute of Chicago, then to a screening of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The movie culminates at a kiss in front of an ice cream parlor.
Sawyers was previously seen in films like Zero Dark Thirty and Hyde Park on the Hudson, and will soon co-star in the upcoming Oliver Stone drama Snowden, the thriller Survivor and next year’s sci-fi themed Spectral.
Sumpter, of course, has a long list of credits to her name. She starred opposite Chadwick Boseman in the James Brown biopic Get On Up, has prominent roles in Ride Along and Bessie, and is also a producer on Southside With You.
Directed by first-timer Richard Tanne, Southside with You will begin shooting in Chicago around August. The film is set for release in 2016.
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(Photos from Left: Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images, Parker Sawyers via Instagram)
