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Former First Daughter Malia Obama’s Job History: From Hollywood Intern to Independent Filmmaker
Former President Barack Obama‘s eldest daughter, Malia Obama, has steered far from the world of politics when it comes to her career path. Keep reading for how she’s forged a successful and creative career in Hollywood.
What Is Malia Obama’s Job?
Malia works as a staff writer on the Amazon Prime series Swarm, which premiered on March 17, 2023. The show is the latest project from Atlanta creator and star Donald Glover and his cocreator Janine Nabers.
Donald gushed over Malia’s talent, telling Vanity Fair in March 2022, “She’s just like, an amazingly talented person. She’s really focused, and she’s working really hard.” The multihyphenate added, “I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon. Her writing style is great.”
Janine, who serves as showrunner on Swarm, gushed over Malia’s creativity and how she cowrote “one of the wildest episodes” of the season entitled “Girl, Bye.” Janine told Entertainment Tonight, “I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people. It’s pretty dope. I’m really proud of it.”
“Some of her pitches were wild as hell, and they were just so good and so funny,” Janine continued about the former White House resident, adding, “She’s an incredible writer. She brought a lot to the table … She’s really, really dedicated to her craft.”
Donald later revealed in an April 4, 2023, interview with GQ that he has continued to mentor Malia following her work on Swarm. He said that she has her sights set on becoming a filmmaker and director and is working on a short film with his new production company, Gilga.
“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” Donald explained “You’re [Barack] Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”
“Understanding somebody like Malia’s cachet means something,” Donald’s longtime collaborator, Fam Udeorji, told the publication. “But we really wanted to make sure she could make what she wanted — even if it was a slow process.”
Where Else Has Malia Worked?
The Harvard graduate knew she wanted a career in entertainment while her father was still president. When she was 15 in 2014, Malia scored a job as a production assistant on Halle Berry‘s CBS sci-fi series, Extant. Shortly after her 17th birthday, Malia spent the summer interning on the set of HBO’s Girls.
Malia landed an internship at the Weinstein Company in 2017 in New York City when she was 19, before starting classes at Harvard. She was “ensconced in the production/development department,” and tasked with “reading through scripts and deciding which ones move on to Weinstein brass,” TMZ reported at the time.
The Chicago native’s mother, former First Lady Michelle Obama, praised how her daughters managed to live under the spotlight from young girls through their teenage years while their father was president from 2009 through 2017. Malia’s younger sister, Sasha Obama, is currently a student at the University of Southern California.
Michelle told Vogue in September 2016, “I’m proud of them, they’ve really managed this so well. I mean, I just love them to death and the big thing I’ve always worried about was making sure that they got out of this whole. I’m just proud that they are poised, smart, intelligent young women.”
