With Barack Obama celebrating his last birthday as POTUS before handing over the White House keys later this year, it seems high time to think about which actor could play him in the inevitable ‘first black president’ biopic.

Well, don’t spend too long pondering the big question, because Will Smith has already shotgunned the role. The two-time Oscar nominee soon to be seen playing Deadshot in Suicide Squad, appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he revealed that he has already discussed the possibility with Obama.

“We’ve talked about it a couple of times and he said the one thing that’s for sure is I have the ears to play him,” Smith said, joking that he’d “missed the opportunity to be the first black president” but would be satisfied with playing him on screen instead.

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“I was thinking about it but, you know, I watched Obama for the last eight years. That’s a hard job,” he added. “I definitely have had the itching. I have lots of views and ideas and sometimes I hear people say things on television and I just want to run against them. Just straight at ‘em and knock ‘em over. But I think it’s not where my greatest gifts are.”


Smith will not be the first to play Obama, however, as the president will soon be represented in Southside with You, an upcoming romantic drama about his budding relationship with Michelle Obama. Parker Sawyers is taking the lead in that movie alongside Tika Sumpter as FLOTUS, with the film due out on 30 September after its Sundance premiere in January.

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Smith also discussed racism with Colbert in the light of protests by the Black Lives Matter group, insisting that the issue is “not getting worse, it’s getting filmed”. The 47-year-old boycotted this year’s Oscars after an all-white acting nominations list for the second year running. 

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