There have been a number of movies written about American presidents, but Richard Tanne’s Southside with You is the first one to be written about a future President’s first date with his future First Lady.
Based on mostly true events, the movie, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, depicts a young Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) on a first date with Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter).
The movie depicts the beginning of a fondness and intimacy of which the world has been now accustomed to witnessing between the 44th American President and his wife. They attend an art exhibit, watch Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, eat ice cream, and it’s not really spoiling anything to assume the date ends with a kiss.
Creative Screenwriting talked with the film’s writer and director about his research into the Obamas, nailing down those recognizable Obama speech patterns, and what inspired him to write this unique love story.
Tika Sumpter as Michelle Robinson and Parker Sawyers as Barack Obama in Southside with You
I’m sure there are many different stories to write about the Obamas. What inspired you to tackle the story about their first date?
Richard Tanne
Their first date was the only angle that ever occurred to me. It was the only angle that inspired me to make the movie. I wasn’t searching around for a more standardized approach. I was just so taken by their story of the first date, the reliability of it, so much so that it just occurred to me as a movie right there and then.
And what connected you personally to their story so much that you thought, “Oh, this needs to be a movie”?
As cheesy as this sounds, it really was the love between the two of them.
I think that it’s an authentic and vibrant love and it’s on display for all of the world to see. It doesn’t feel staged, it doesn’t feel forced, it feel very real, and that’s a very rare thing in people. Not only in people you know in regular life, let alone the President and the First Lady.
I was struck by the idea for the script for several years. I would read about them, and ideas would formulate and I would write little bits of dialogue.
I had something formed nascently, but I didn’t sit down to write it until 2013. By that point I had fallen in love in my own life, and I think that really was the impetus. I didn’t know it at the time, but certain ideas kept calling out to me.
In retrospect once I understood what an amazing first date felt like, what it felt like to fall in love for real, then I really felt I had a pull towards the story and an approach to telling it.
Tika Sumpter as Michelle Robinson in Southside with You
How did you research the project? How much was creative licensing?
I was reading a lot through 2011 and 2013, and really before I decided to officially write it, out of curiosity I was reading everything that came out about them.
I read interviews with the President and the First Lady. I read biographies. I read Craig Robinson’s book – Michelle Obama’s brother. I was just collecting all of this biographical information about them.
By the time I was ready to start writing, I was pretty soaked up with facts. So the trick was to get them talking like real people, and whatever bubbled up from their established biographies, great. And whatever didn’t come up, that was OK, too.
In that sense, the characters were being created for the movie rather than for any sort of legacy, or any sort of strict adherence to the people we see on TV. I wanted to show them as younger, and differently to how we’ve been accustomed to seeing them. We had a little leeway for creative licensing because they were younger and we – the world – didn’t know them back then.
In terms of their date, they did go to the Art Institute, they did have lunch afterwards, they did see Do The Right Thing, they did have drinks.
A couple of locations were changed around a bit. Early in their courtship, Barack brought Michelle to a community meeting where he spoke and she was impressed by him. And though it happened later, I put it into the first date because the spirit was true to what had happened dramatically for the arc of the story.
There was a lot of information that wasn’t available to me. I wasn’t in touch with them or their inner circle. For example, I don’t know what kind of art they looked at. So that’s where I took a bit of creative licensing about what kind of exhibit they attended, and what kind of conversation might have transpired.
Parker Sawyers as Barack Obama in Southside with You
When writing the characters of Michelle and Obama, what did you want to explore about them that we might not otherwise see or know?
What was fascinating to me about the first date, when I started looking into where they were both at in their lives in this decade, was that it was a really great reflection point to explore them as people.
Both of them had come from a background of altruism. They had both spent time being charitable and helping others. Michelle had gone through Ivy League institutions and into the corporate law world, and it wasn’t satisfactory to her. She was dissatisfied with her job and yearning for more. And now Barack was navigating through the Ivy League world and was beginning to think about what was next for him.
So it was a nice reflection point that anyone, including any young person, could relate to. At that point you feel like you have the potential and you have the raw materials to make something out of your life, but you’re not sure how to shape up yet.
Maybe you’ll meet that person who will help you figure it out and reflect who you are back to you. And that was the point where they met each other and I found that fascinating.
They challenge each other quite a bit during their date. What was your intent with their debating throughout their time together?
First and foremost, Michelle was, by her own admission in real life, extremely reluctant to go out with him. So you’re factoring that into the construction of her character. What kind of walls might be up, if that’s the attitude? Even though she’s attracted to him and finds him intriguing, there are walls up.
And what walls are up on his end? Because there’s a character strand of arrogance there. It’s not offensive arrogance – it’s a little comical at times, and that’s obviously extrapolated from the President we see now, who’s a very confident guy. So what would that have looked like in a rougher form, earlier in his life?
The other thing about it is that they were both lawyers. And lawyers tend to debate. I come from a family of lawyers and there is a lot of back-and-forth. Whether it was about Stevie Wonder or the law firm, they are both coming from different perspectives and they are both fiercely intelligent and passionate and young, so I thought it created some nice friction and fireworks.
Tika Sumpter as Michelle Robinson and Parker Sawyers as Barack Obama in Southside with You
As you mentioned, despite Michelle telling Barack she doesn’t want to date him, Barack remains persistent. How were you able to balance the romance with Barack’s relentless pursuit of her?
I think that’s part of the romance. He’s in love with her from the beginning. He doesn’t know the depth of her character or personality yet, so he’s discovering a lot about her and falling deeper as the movie goes on. But it starts from him really knowing what he wants.
Michelle, in the movie, is very clear that she doesn’t see it as a date, but she does want to be there. She does go out with him and stays on the date and enjoys his company. I think that’s part of the courtship. That she’s letting him know she wants the dialogue to keep going.
The conversation between the two of them, the clues and the questioning, that’s how they’re flirting. That’s how they are discovering one another.
The dialogue, as well as the actors, seems to perfectly capture their unique speech patterns. How were you able to hone in on that in your writing?
If that’s true – I appreciate you saying that – I think from a writing perspective it comes down to feeling very connected to your characters.
It’s hard to actively search for a character’s voice. It’s either there or not. I was really fortunate with this movie because the characters are real people and are ubiquitous. I watched interviews and I read about them – everything from Michelle’s thesis at Princeton to speeches Obama has given – so I could get a sense about these people.
Of course that won’t matter if you don’t find the right actors to give life to those voices. I was just so lucky to work with Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter, because as much as I connected to the characters while I was writing, they connected tenfold while we were rehearsing and they were doing their own research.
So I think it’s 20% writing, and 80% is the actors.
Southside with You is available now on Digital HD, Blu-Ray and DVD
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