A new biopic on President Obama as a young college student is coming to Netflix.
Variety reports that the film Barry was bought by Netflix at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday.
The film, starring newcomer Devon Terrell as Obama, is set in 1981, when a 20-year-old Barack Obama moves to New York City after transferring to Columbia University. Authentic to the nature of college life in the ’80s, “the film is rooted in the murky, drifting, sleep-late-and-get-stoned-and-do-whatever nature of college life that the movies almost never get right,”adds Variety.
Oddly enough, production on the Vikram Gandhi-directed film began one month after Southside With You—the big screen look into Obama and future First Lady Michelle Robinson’s first date—premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Rumor has it – according to Deadline – Netflix acquired the highly-praised film for upwards of $4.5 million.
This will be Terrell’s film debut after being discovered by 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen. The Australian native says when he was 19 a cousin asked him what his dream role would be and he said, “Barack Obama.”
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“I was born in the States and grew up in Australia, and I’m mixed-race,” he adds. “I’ve had that same experience of, like, where do I sit? He speaks to so many people like me all over the world. It doesn’t matter where you are or where you were born, you have a reason to be here and you belong somewhere.”
No word yet on when the film will start streaming on Netflix.