With approval rates reaching a 7-year high and little over a month left in office, the “Obama nostalgia” is kicking in. Earlier this year, we saw Obama woo future First Lady, Michelle, on a sunny 1989 Chicago day in the film, “Southside With You.” And now another film turns back the clock even further, focusing on a more awkward 20-year-old Obama. We see the man before the “Change We Can Believe In,” when he was struggling to forge his own identity—when he was simply Barry.

In his new biopic “Barry,” Director Vikram Gandhi looks to capture the essence of the man before the presidency. Starring Australian newcomer, Devon Terrell, we see the portrayal of a young man we can all relate to, having ever been in a position of self-doubt and uncertainty.

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How did you come across this project, was there anything specific that made you decide that you wanted to do this movie?

Yeah, I was reading Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama’s memoir and I was like, “Holy shit Barack Obama went to Columbia University in 1981 and he lived in this building next to where I lived when I went to Columbia.” Right when I read that, I started imagining what that block looked like in ’81– the walk he took to class, what the West End Bar would have looked like back then, Tom’s Diner, where everybody went to have breakfast. All those things I had experienced when I went to Columbia too, so immediately I had this image playing in my head, and then I started developing what the story could be from all the public information that was out there during that time. I ended up approaching our producer Dana O’Keefe and finding Adam Mansbach, who also went to Columbia, and that’s how the movie came to be.

Having that personal connection with the story, how do you think that affected you as a filmmaker?

This film is an attempt to understand who a kid named Barry was in 1981. So for myself, my screenwriter, everybody who was influenced by this, there was a level of projection of who that kid was, but there is also something completely, incredibly communal about the experience of being a 20-year-old kid in New York City. We did our best to recreate through understanding the environment he was in—his background and who he would become—to tell that story.

As far as research, because you did have some background on the topic already, what else went into it? Were there any obstacles that you encountered while trying to find information from that specific time frame in Obama’s life?

Yeah, I mean there’s only like a chapter in his book about that period of time and the trickiest thing is that he was living kind of like a monk. There wasn’t that much information about him, not that many pictures, and not that many memories of other classmates. He was like, a solo guy and he was on his own journey. That definitely made it tricky to piece everything together that happened, but at its essence, it was really trying to find what emotionally was going on during that period of time in his late teens-early twenties. There’s a lot of imagining what that kid could have been experiencing. A mixed-race kid from Hawaii—who never knew his father—moved to New York in 1981 and is exposed to this huge world of possibility and identities and has to find his way, so there’s a lot there. It’s a pretty juicy subject already. In a superficial way, you could see how that would be complicated off the bat for anybody—not just him. But otherwise, there’s some great articles and a lot of stuff that he’s written, things he’s said in podcasts about what was going on in his mind during that time. Those are really the things that I drew from the most– what he’s said and what other people have said about his experience.

“A mixed-race kid from Hawaii—who never knew his father— moved New York in 1981 and is exposed to this huge world of possibility and identities and has to find his way…”

While you were going through that process, did you find yourself learning anything new or just seeing a part of him that you didn’t expect?

Part of the reason I wanted to make this movie is because I was kind of already obsessed with New York in the 80s. So it was more of just this wild idea that Barack Obama lived in New York during that time. I mean, already you can just imagine any normal college kid’s life at that time in New York’s history. As far as anything I discovered, my attraction to the story was not about how extraordinary his experience was but perhaps more about how extraordinary his circumstances were and how relatable his story is. I wouldn’t say that there were any huge discoveries, but more of a journey to understand what a person with his background would have experienced during that time. I think it’s more about how relatable the story is, how American it is and how it being so unique and odd in a lot of ways; that makes it so relatable to everyone.

So would you say that was your goal throughout the process of making the movie? Having your central character someone who people can relate to and understand even though now he seems like such a far-away person?

I think that there’s—even if you look at my first movie “Kumare”—I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s a story about how these people who are put on pedestals are actually regular people. To me, that’s what this story is. It’s about the sort of regular-ness of his struggles, which is just to fit in during this period of time. I really like the idea of taking this person who is the most documented person on Earth and one of the most powerful people in the world and show the humanity in him. That was my goal. Also, I think that his background, in his upbringing and what he would become, you tell a story about the American Dream that is new and more up to date than we’ve seen. There are very rarely characters of mixed race that are in Hollywood. You know, casting is like “Well, we need a black person…we need a white person.” Our President is someone who embodies so many different cultures and has a diverse makeup, and I think it’s important to recognize that because that’s what the next generation of Americans are going to be and what it already is.

“I think that his background, in his upbringing and what he would become, you tell a story about the American Dream that is new and more up to date than we’ve seen.”

And as far as casting goes, how did you decide on your main actor, Devon Terrell? Was there anything that stood out to you that made you think “this is the guy that I want to play him”?

I mean the kid is complete charisma. He speaks from his heart and he’s just an amazing person. I looked at his audition and just said, “I could watch this kid for 2 hours,” that’s the first thing. But to be honest, I learned a lot about Barry from Devon. Devon is half African-American, half Anglo-Indian. He grew up in Perth, Australia. He idolized Barack Obama like many kids did, but a lot of it was because his background was so similar—just in the fact that he also struggled to figure out where he belonged. He used basketball as an outlet, he struggled to have a deeper relationship with his father who lived in the U.S., you have all of these things that made him such a perfect person to represent this story, so it was a natural thing for me. Then the accent was something we just worked on when we got to New York, thankfully he was able to embody a young Barack Obama really well, but that was never really the thing that I was drawn to.

In the movie, there are a lot of race-based issues and obviously the struggle for an identity, even though it takes place 35 years ago. How do you think that translates to what we’re seeing today in our country? What would you want your audience to take away from the message that you’re trying to put out?

I just wanted to tell a story that allowed us to empathize with a different protagonist and see the inner of a man that would one day become President, but I never really thought of it as political. In fact, I thought “this is an extremely non-political movie about a very political person” but in the backdrop of a President-Elect Trump, set against the backdrop of the rhetoric that has been put out—isolationist rhetoric, one of anti-immigrant rhetoric and one that’s demeaning to people of color—all of a sudden these sort of personal things in Barack Obama’s life become political issues. So, when I watched the movie on November 9th, as opposed to before the election, I see this movie as incredibly political. All the things that define an American that are put forward in this movie are the ones that I have grown up with, and I think most of us have grown up with: one that embraces a melting pot of cultures, one that is a nation of immigrants, one that shows a country that’s constantly changing and being dynamic in incorporating new people and the greatness of that as being the American spirit. Now, when you hear about an America that is closing its borders, one that allows white supremacists to be in the forefront and part of the administration, all of a sudden these ideas become troubling. Maybe the America that we are all striving for, somebody is trying to stop from moving forward. I think a lot of the things in this movie are important to look at and say: “the America that’s represented in this film is still the America we live in, it hasn’t changed just because Trump has been elected.”

“[Set] against the backdrop of the rhetoric that has been put out—isolationist rhetoric, one of anti-immigrant rhetoric and one that’s demeaning to people of color—all of a sudden these sort of personal things in Barack Obama’s life become political issues.”

How has the reception of the movie been so far?

People seem to like it. People seem to get it. The movie opens up tomorrow [on Netflix], so I’m sure I will hear much more when it comes out from the general public, but I think the critics have liked it so far. I usually only get to hear the really good things, so apparently, it’s fucking great.

Good! And anything from the Obama Administration yet, or is that something you’re still waiting for?

No, I hope he watches it and digs it.

‘Barry’ is now available to stream on Netflix.