Assuming, probably safely, that there will be a movie about Obama sooner or later, who gets the lead?
**Sampiro ** raised this questiona few years ago and got sadly little traction. I didn’t want to unearth a zombie, so I’ll give it another shot.
Because this is my thread, you don’t get to raise anyone from the dead or make anyone younger or older. You can get any actor working today to play the 44th President.
Someone mentioned in another thread that there’s nothing Don Cheadle can’t do. He’s about the right age, but he’s about 5 inches shorter than Obama, and doesn’t look much like him. He is an awesome actor, though.
Giancarlo Esposito is also about the right age and a little closer in looks. But at 5’8" like Cheadle, he’s also a little short. I might still go with him. Get some pointers from Peter Jackson on making him look like the 6’1" Obama. I never saw Breaking Bad, but I understand Esposito was pretty awesome in it. He was also terrific in Homicide: Life on the Streets. If he can play a ruthless drug dealer in Breaking Bad and an estranged son trying to win his father’s affection in Homicide, he can probably play a pretty interesting Obama.
I’d never heard of Harry J. Lennix before, but this blog suggests him. There’s some resemblance. And it looks like he was in Little Britain USA, so that counts for something.
When he was elected and generally seen as so hip he might have difficulty seeing over his pelvis, everybody said Will Smith. I still think it should be Harry Lennix.
Well, let’s see. The 2008 campaign was somewhat interesting and someone already made a movie about the losing ticket, there was the recession, the health care bill, the killing of bin Laden, marriage equality, and oh right, he’s the first black/biracial president. You could probably make several movies about any president (OK, probably not WH Harrison) were you inclined to do so. A movie doesn’t have to be about the whole eight years, after all - it can be about any interesting moment in that time. That’s the approach they used in Lincoln, isn’t it? I have no idea if anybody wants to and I don’t expect anybody to try until well after he leaves office, but there’s more than enough to start with for someone who’s interested.
There’s one A-list actor who has performed on stage with Obama, sort of, but I’m not sure how well that qualifies Clint Eastwood for the job.
I think Forrest Whittaker is a magician of an actor, but it would take an awful lot for him to pull off a physical similarity to Obama. I don’t know the work of Esposito or Lennix, so for me that leaves the two obvious choices, Will Smith and Denzel Washington. Both of them melted into their roles of famous historical figures, but Washington might be getting a bit old for the part now. So that leaves Will Smith.
And there was that little joke in Men In Black 3.
