3/21/2023 0 Comments Southside with you![]() And that is when the project came to Tika Sumpter's attention.Īn established actor - she plays Ice Cube's daughter in the Ride Along movies, and stars on Tyler Perry's OWN series The Haves and the Have Nots - Sumpter was nonetheless hungry for a role black actresses rarely get to play in a movie black actresses rarely get to make. To help convince others that he could write and direct this story, he composed a one-page outline that covered how he wanted to approach it. Prior to Southside With You, Tanne's experience in filmmaking was largely as a producer of micro-budget indies - he'd even starred in one of them. I find that rare in people, and I find that especially rare in public figures." He explained that it wasn't until years later, when he fell in love for the first time, that he knew how to approach that story as a feature film. "There's a real special connection between the two of them that's just authentic and alive and kind of sexy, even. "It was really that look that they give each other," he said. He had first grown keen on the idea of making a movie about the Obamas' first date during the 2008 presidential campaign. In truth, Tanne had many more hurdles in front of him for making Southside With You. And Parker as an actor was capable of pulling out every trick in the book." It was the first time that I said, 'OK, I think we have a real shot at this,' because the character of Barack needs to pull out every trick in the book to convince Michelle that he is worthy of her attention. He could play intellectual, he could play goofy. He said, 'OK, I got it.' … The tape he sent back showed an actor who's capable of playing just about every single level in a performance. You're just a guy who's trying to get a girl. "I gave him the note to drop the president. The actor's narrow face, high cheekbones, and lean physique instantly conjured Obama. And, man," Sawyers continued, shaking his head and slipping into a spot-on imitation of Obama's familiar vocal rhythms, "it was…very…slow, aaannnd talking…like…this."ĭespite Sawyers’ vocal imitation falling flat, Tanne's casting director advised him to watch Sawyers' audition with the sound off. "It was a scene where he talks about his father. In Sawyers' initial audition, however, the Indiana-born actor presented a full impersonation of the now 54-year-old President Obama's public persona, which was totally wrong for the naturalistic approach first-time director Richard Tanne was going for. His performance as the 28-year-old Harvard Law student is uncanny, filled with subtle Obama trademarks - his loping gait, his halting laugh, the way he uses his hands to cut through the air when making a point - without ever falling into caricature. Most of his previous acting credits were for small, nameless parts in films like Zero Dark Thirty and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, but in his first lead role, Sawyers needed to play the most powerful man in the world at one of the most formative moments of his life: his first date with a young lawyer named Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) on a warm Chicago summer day in 1989. … It was like, all right, I better make this guy jump off the screen."Īnd that is exactly what Sawyers did. ![]() "She told her optometrist that I had won the part," Sawyers told BuzzFeed News at the festival. But it wasn't until Sawyers' wife came home from an eye doctor appointment that the 32-year-old London-based actor fully grasped the magnitude of what he was about to attempt. ![]() Parker Sawyers knew it was a big deal when he was cast as Barack Obama in Southside With You, an independent romantic drama that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
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