Back before she became Michelle Obama, the First Lady trying to get kids to eat their vegetables, she was Michelle Robinson, a young, ambitious lawyer in Chicago. Tika Sumpter, whom you might recognize from Get On Up or Gossip Girl (never forget), will play Michelle Obama in Southside With You, a Before Sunset–style rendition of the first couple’s first date, when a smitten Barack Obama suggested a full day of quality time on a balmy Chicago afternoon in 1989. It’s the date that’s the stuff of legend: a romantic walk, a visit to the Art Institute, and a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. That Barry, such a planner.
“I’m nervous because she’s Michelle Obama, who is everything every woman wants to be,†Sumpter told Vulture at the Bessie premiere Wednesday night. To prepare for the prestigious role, Sumpter basically took a self-taught college course in future First Lady. “I’m reading everything,†she said. “I’m just enveloping myself in everything I think she probably would have read.†That includes her Princeton dissertation, Richard Wright’s early writings, Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry, and A Game of Character, written by her brother Craig Robinson. “Just trying to get firsthand messages about who she was, ‘pre’ what we know now.â€
Sumpter, who is also an executive producer, said that casting the role of a young Barack Obama is almost complete, but that it’s top secret for now. “You have to wait and see.â€