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A visit to an art exhibit. Lunch in the park. Dancing with street musicians. A stirring speech at a community event. Strolling along Lake Michigan. A drink. A movie. A shared ice cream cone.

If that sounds like a first date engineered by Hollywood, too fantastic to take place in real life, you’ll have to take it up with the president. That’s precisely how he wooed 25-year-old Michelle Robinson in 1989. It’s a story so good that it inspired Richard Tanne to write and direct “Southside with You,” a film based on the date that hits theaters this Friday.

For Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers, who play Michelle and Barack, respectively, stepping into the roles of real-life giants was more than a little daunting. Rather than thinking of the characters as the president and first lady, both actors admitted it was easier to think of them as normal 20-somethings.

“[What] both of us tried to do is just play the truth of who they were at 28 and 25—just people working in an office, interning during the summer,” Sawyers said. “It was hot, you’ve got a hole in your car, you read books in your spare time, you have lunch with your family—just play the truth of the scene, and it takes a lot of the pressure off.”

Sawyers bears more than a passing resemblance to Barack, and his execution of the future president’s voice and mannerisms in the movie is uncanny. He, too, lived in Chicago for a short period of time when he was younger and said he could identify with his character’s take on what it means to be a black man in this country.

“When I was growing up in Indianapolis, I went to a private school and there was, out of 200 kids, maybe six black kids,” he said. “But as a child, you just do it. You’re just like, ‘Oh, talk one way here, then I go home.’ It’s code-switching, I suppose, so you do it naturally, without thinking. I had that experience throughout most of my education. I think like Barack in the film, I never considered it a big deal. It was just like, this is how I live.”

“It works,” Sumpter said.

“Yeah, it works,” echoed Sawyers.

In the film, Michelle says that when she commutes from the South Side to the Loop, she feels like she’s “leaving Planet Black and landing on Planet White.” Both Sawyers and Sumpter remarked that while you recognize that sort of dichotomy as a kid, it doesn’t really start affecting your mindset until people force the awareness on you in adulthood.

“I just remember being a cheerleader in high school, and I was the first black cheerleader there,” Sumpter said. “I remember going to a lot of competitions and I would be sometimes the only one, but I would just be like, ‘Eh.’ It didn’t register as ‘You’re the only black girl, you have to represent for every black person in the world.’ I was just myself and I was a kid and it was fine.

“I think as you get older, people make you more aware,” she continued. “Like when I got one of my first acting jobs, I was getting all these emails from other black women just saying, ‘Oh my God, you’re on this show,’ I didn’t really understand until it was like, ‘Well, we’re not on a lot of shows, so this matters.’ And you’re like, ‘Oh!’ And then you’re in the room and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m the only black girl here.’ It’s strange.”

Sawyers agreed that sometimes others make him feel more aware of his race than he would be inclined to. It was when he moved to London at age 25 that he said he began feeling more “other” because people would often remark on basic stereotypes of African-Americans that he didn’t fit.

“I took my son to soccer practice and there was a mixed kid who ran up, and this guy, he didn’t mean anything by it, he was like, ‘Oh, is that yours as well? Do you have another son?’ Um, no, that’s not my son. He kind of looks like me, but … ‘Oh, well, you’re the only black guy here.’ And I didn’t even think about it! I looked around and I was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re right.’ Out of a hundred parents, and I didn’t even … I don’t think about it,” he said.

Part of what makes “Southside with You” work so well is the fact that it is unafraid of genuine human feelings and flaws. Barack and Michelle Obama might live in the White House now, but that doesn’t change the fact that 27 years ago they were ambitious but uncertain young people, trying to work out what they truly wanted. The film itself has been described as “Linklater-esque,” referencing the fact that the whole thing is essentially a daylong conversation between two people.

“These movies don’t come out that often, and when they do, it’s like people are ready for them because they’re refreshing because you’re actually hearing conversation. It’s not a lot of, boom bang pow! Or MTV-style cutting,” Sumpter said. “It’s just nice to be still sometimes. What we’re hearing a lot is that it’s refreshing to be in the moment with these two people. You feel like you’re in the room with them.”

We’re currently in a moment where it feels like a lot of people want to be in the room with the Obamas. The president currently has his highest approval rating since 2013, and the first lady’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was widely praised. Earlier this month, President Obama published an essay on feminism in Glamour Magazine, writing, “It’s important that [my daughters’] dad is a feminist, because now that’s what they expect of all men.”

Sawyers noted that Barack has loosened up in the past year and has been leading the way on several issues, but Sumpter said she thinks his views on feminism may have evolved through the lens of Michelle and their daughters.

“I feel like through the filters of them, he sees the world in a different way and realizes holy hell, equality for women is very important,” she said. “Even though I’m sure he has a respect for Michelle and he has forever, [he’s] being a feminist for them and this woman who raised these two girls. They both raised them, but to see their mom, the strength, I think through that filter, he sees how important it is.”

And perhaps that is why the director, Tanne, chooses to end the film not on a shot of Barack, but on one of Michelle. It is as much her story as it is his—maybe even more—this strong, opinionated woman who at first wouldn’t even agree to a date with her co-worker.

“She’s not chasing,” Sumpter said. “And he has to work for it. And then they both figure out what they need in each other. And she comes to the realization at the end that this could be something. There are a lot of changes for her over the course of the one day. So I think that’s probably why it ended up on Michelle, smiling.”

@lchval | laurenchval@redeyechicago.com