Why are film-makers fascinated by Barack Obama?

First date: Michelle (Tika Sumpter) and Barack (Parker Sawyers) in Southside With You

As Barack Obama's time at the White House draws to an end, film-makers are turning their attention to his early life. Two biopics - Barry and Southside with You - have been made for the big screen. So why the sudden fascination with the US president's younger days?

Actors Parker Sawyers and Devon Terrell bumped into each other recently at an Emmys party in Los Angeles.

They had never met before, but it wasn't hard for them to recognise each other. Not only were they signed up to the same talent agency - both played the role of a young Barack Obama in separate films about him this year.

"He was a nice guy, we had a good chat," recalls Sawyers when we meet in London to discuss his role in Southside with You.

Richard Tanne's romantic drama, released in the US at the end of August, is a fictionalised account of the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama in Chicago in 1989.

It's made almost $6.3m (£4.8m) at the box office and opens in the UK this week.

Over the course of a day, 28-year-old law associate Obama (Sawyers) attempts to woo reluctant attorney Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter).

They visit an art exhibition, attend a community meeting and end the day with a cinema visit to see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Sawyers, 33, almost missed out on the role because his first audition tape was a "straight-on impersonation" of Obama aged 50 - "the kind of thing you'd see on Saturday Night Live".

A few months later, after some advice from Tanne to tone it down, he sent in a another audition and got the part.

Southside with You premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival

Sawyers, who grew up in Indianapolis but now lives with his family in London, only started acting five years ago and Obama is his first lead role.

He was first told of his resemblance to the US president by director Kathryn Bigelow while filming Zero Dark Thirty, in which he had a minor part.

He started doing Obama impressions on set to keep his colleagues amused. "I always had a feeling I'd play him, maybe in a biopic in about 15 years, but I never imagined it would be him as a 28-year-old," he admits.

Sawyers describes the young Obama as someone who "knows himself quite well and is very comfortable in his own skin".

In a key scene where Obama addresses a community meeting, we witness the first flash of him as a political orator.

"I rehearsed that scene like crazy," says Sawyers. "My sister came up the weekend before and I bought her a spa day, so she would go away so I could practice."

The actor had no room for improvisation. "I asked if I could switch two words and was told 'no' because it was approved by lawyers and we are talking about real people."

'Check it out'

To Sawyers' knowledge, the Obamas haven't yet seen the film, but it is in the White House entertainment library.

Musician John Legend, one of the film's executive producers, has apparently told the president to "check it out".

So why would people want to watch a film about the Obamas' first date?

"They are fascinating people and people can't help but wonder what made the man and the woman that we see on screen today," says Sawyers.

"I guess no interviews with the president and the first lady go that deep. You can't ask 'who was your first kiss?' - it would be inappropriate. So now we are just guessing at how they met."

Sawyers hopes to meet Obama one day. What would he say if he did?

"I guess, thank you for putting yourself out there and working. I'm happy that he devoted his life to public service because it's an honourable thing to do."

And then he adds with a grin: "I also want to see what Michelle thinks about my performance."

'Shattering the icon'

Devon Terrell as Barack Obama in Barry

This year's other Obama film - Barry - goes even further back into the president's past.

Set in 1981, it sees a young Barack - known to his friends as Barry - arrive as a student in New York City where his experiences help form his views on race, politics and his own identity.

He's also seen swearing, smoking, drinking and getting a girlfriend (played by The Witch's Anya Taylor-Joy).

"I don't think it's that controversial," says Vikram Gandhi, the film's director, after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"It's a movie that is shattering the icon. It makes sense that you see him do everything. He didn't have that many vices."

Barry's Obama is played by Australian actor Devon Terrell in his first screen role.

"It was 10 on the daunting scale," he admits. "Here was someone who could be imitated, but could I be the man behind the presidential mask?"

Terrell assumed there would be lots of archive and videos of Obama at the age of 21 but there was nothing. "I did all the research I possibly could to build him from the ground up."

Terrell became a font of obscure facts about Obama - such as his room smelling of Brut aftershave and that he loved peanut sauce in Indonesia.

The actor also found a 58-minute clip of an older Obama to which he kept going back.

"I would learn passages of it," he says. "There is an awkwardness and a shyness behind him, but also a charm that comes out."

And what will Obama think of the film?

"I think he'll probably be cool with it," says Gandhi. "Or say 'you're an idiot'. Either one is OK."

Gandhi is happy that his film co-exists with Southside with You.

"That film is about the burgeoning love between Barack and Michelle and people can draw something from that," he says.

"Ours is a more complicated web of identity struggle and race in America.

"I think it's cool that you can see two different stories. I wouldn't have made a romantic date movie.

"It just felt so different. We were so focused on this guy going through a deep journey that it didn't distract us."

Barry had its world premiere at this month's Toronto International Film Festival. Southside with You opens in the UK on 30 September.