IM Global made the announcement Thursday. Sawyer joins Tika Sumpter (Get on Up) who will play Michelle.
The film covers the eventful date in 1989, when a young associate named Barack Obama was trying to woo lawyer Michelle Robinson on a summer afternoon and evening, which took them through the Art Institute of Chicago, a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and their first kiss outside of an ice cream parlor.
Sawyers recently completed Oliver Stone’s Snowden and is about to shoot a supporting role in the feature The Autopsy of Jane Doe alongside Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch.
Shooting on the film begins in Chicago in August.
