Drake hasn’t acted much in recent years, having filled most of the time since he dropped out of Degrassi: The Next Generation about a decade ago by becoming, well, one of the most successful musicians on the planet. (Which isn’t to discount his important and powerful cameo work in Anchorman 2 and Ice Age: Continental Drift.) Variety reports that he’s just gotten the blessing to get back in the “Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham” game in a major way, though, with Barack Obama telling reporters that, sure, Drake can play him when the inevitable biopic comes out.
Obama gave this all-important nod in a wide-ranging, incisive interview this week with Complex’s Speedy Morman, which also touched on any number of other, less societally important factors, including the ongoing 2020 election debacle, generational divides in the Democratic party, and several other things that were not biopic fantasy casting choices. (Much of it was, obviously, centered on Obama’s new memoir A Promised Land; we haven’t watched all of the full 56-minute interview yet, but we can only pray they address that much-passed-around excerpt where Obama talks about reading Marx and Foucault in order to fail to cruise hot college chicks, something we have to admit would be fascinating to see Drake try to pull off.)
Specifically, Obama said, “I will say this, Drake seems to be able to do anything he wants. I mean, that is a talented, talented brother. So if the time comes and he’s ready…” He then went on to say something completely insane and wild, given that we’re talking about his daughters’ reactions to who would play him, their dad, in a movie: “Drake has, more importantly, I think, my household’s stamp of approval. I suspect Malia and Sasha would be just fine with it.”
Obama has, of course, been played on film and TV several times before, having been mimicked by Parker Sawyers in Southside With You, Devon Terrell in Barry, and, most recently, Kingsley Ben-Adir in HBO’s The Comey Rule. Meanwhile, it’s been a minute since Drake talked about his own aspirations to play the former President, although we imagine that’s probably not the sort of ambition that you shake off once you’ve been given the stamp of approval from the big man himself.