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MELBOURNE, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- An Australian making his acting debut has been chosen to play the part of a young Barack Obama in a new American biopic based on the life of the outgoing US President.
Devon Terrell, 24, from the West Australian capital of Perth, was chosen for the role in the film, 'Barry', even though he had never acted in a major production before.
To be released on Friday on streaming service Netflix, 'Barry' follows the President's formative years as a free-spirited college student at Columbia University in New York, a stark contrast to the polished professional politician who has strutted the world stage over the past eight years.
Since premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September, critics have heaped praise on 'Barry' and Terrell, who became left-handed for the role and had to moderate his Australian accent and learn to speak in Obama's Illinois tones.
"I watched countless, countless hours of footage of him when he was younger," Terrell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.
"It became a very immersive kind of process of understanding this young man's psyche when he was at university and kind of this moment in his life ... a moment in time that shaped the person he is today."
On top of it being his first ever role, there were other factors that made Terrell nervous. "There were people from the White House at the Toronto screening from what I heard," he said.
The film focusses on Obama's struggles in 1981 when he was a black student at a predominantly white, privileged campus in Manhattan.
In Barry, he juggles being an ivy-league scholar and a boyfriend to his white, well-off girlfriend, while being a "brother" on the basketball court and treated as a suspect on his own campus to the prejudiced police.
Terrell said he could identify with Obama's assimilation problems.
The young Australian was born in Long Beach, California, and at the age of five moved with his family to Perth.
"I had to change my voice and I became Australian," he told the ABC. "I was the only African-American Anglo-Indian in Perth probably, so you know I didn't know where I kind of fitted."
"I asked myself the same questions that he was asking at that age.
"I think it's a great story for young people to watch and think: 'Oh gosh, Barack went through the same thing that I did'."
Terrell said he found himself when he began studying acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney - where the likes of Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving made their start.
