"Snowden" Star Parker Sawyer As The Young Barack Obama In ‘Southside With You’

Best known for his roles in “Zero Dark Thirty” and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recuit,” Parker Sawyer has been cast as the young Barack Obama in the upcoming romantic dramedy “Southside With You.” The romance-drama flick follows the president story about his first date with Michelle Robinson, played by “Get on Up” star Tika Sumpter.

Written and directed by Richard Tanne, “Southside With You” covers the eventful date in 1989 when Obama was a young associate who was trying to get the attention of Robinson one fateful summer afternoon. The future president and his first lady were working in a corporate law firm in Chicago and the 25-year-old Robinson was tasked to mentor the 27-year-old Obama.

The date took them through the Art Institute of Chicago, a screening of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” until they shared their first kiss outside of an ice cream parlor.

The movie is Tanne’s directorial debut and will be produced by Bob Teitel, and will be executive produced by M Global’s Stuart Ford, Matt Jackson, Glendon Palmer and Tracy Bing. “Southside With You” is set to start its production in Chicago in August.

Meanwhile, Sawyer is currently based in UK and recently wrapped up Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” production with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Scott Eastwood, Zachary Quinto and Nicholas Cage. Based on the books “The Snowden Files” by Luke Harding, the political thriller stars Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden who leaked the classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the media starting in June 2013.

The actor is also set to start filming “The Autopsy Of Jane Doe” as he stars alongside Brian Cox and Emile Hirsh. The supernatural thriller started its production in late March and the movie follows the two coroners, father and son (Cox and Hirsh), who receive a mysterious homicide victim with no cause of death.

The actor’s film credits also include “Don Hang Up” which is now in post-production, “Survivor,” “Austerland,” “Monsters: Dark Continent” and “Hyde Park on Hudson.” Sawyer is repped by 42’s George Monkland in the U.K. and NB Management’s Nicolas Bernheim in the U.S.

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