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Talent: Omari Hardwick
Photography, Creative Direction, and Production by: Mike Ruiz
Editor-in-Chief: Dimitri Vorontsov
Stylist: Alison Hernon
at Agency Gerard Artists
Groomer: Jessica Smalls-Langston  at The Wall Group
Assistant Fashion Styling: Melissa Kaiser
Studio / Location: Blonde + Co. NYC, New York

Dimitri: Did you enjoy the photoshoot with Mike Ruiz?

Omari: Oh, it was great. It was freaking great, man. Great eye. I always liked somebody who is sensible enough to know that if you have it, you have it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and let’s move on when we got it. He’s that. It’s a good thing. You know what I mean? I put music on, and I find my rhythm, and then once I find my rhythm, then it’s all good from there.

Dimitri: We actually have some friends in common, Robert Glasper.

Omari: Oh, wow.

Dimitri: Yes. I was with Rob. I’d known him since the Black Radio 1. I spent the whole week with Robert when he was recording the Black Radio 2 as a part of the Experiment. It was an amazing experience.

Omari: Special guy. I’ve probably done maybe eight or nine songs with Robert, if not more. He’s one of those rare individuals who knew me from the musical space or musical side of my art. From poetry more so, but he didn’t even know the actor, which was really cool because I felt– when I dove back into music, I was always really messing with it early on, living in South Central, having gotten cut from NFL. Moved to New York, did theater, was in New York, Chicago respectively, doing all kind of hole-in-the-wall theater shows, but then also Repertoire Theater that took me on the road, and tried to lose the weight.
Couldn’t really lose the football weight at the time, it was probably about 200 pounds. When I moved to New York, it was poetry venues that made sense to me. When I did a play in Chicago, it was poetry venues that made sense to me. Then when I got to LA, ultimately, where I spent more of my adult life, then it became very much a sanctuary. Robert, as well as 11 from London, that whole crew to neo-soul world of– even Anthony Hamilton, Melanie Fiona, Goapele, Jill Scott, a lot of them all know me from– Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Rashid as Common, they all know me from that space, and Robert Glasper is in that huddle of those who knew me from that space.
Now they all, everybody for I mentioned knew that I was an actor, but ironically Glasper didn’t, so it was dope when I go back into music because when I was in South Central, back in the day living, $5, paying rent, trying to make ends meet, there were people that were saying, “Man, you should really pursue this music thing.” They would try to call me a rapper, and I was like, “No, I’m a poet,” and I was real big on that.
I think a lot of those guys were getting at something because they knew that the shelf life as a poet. Unless you’re at a poetry venue, you really can’t reach as many people audience-wise. Ultimately, even with the aid of Glasper about six years ago, I dove back hard into music, and I found that voice, the marriage I guess, the hybrid of me trying to spit as a poet, but making sure that it remained poet MC, and then singing as well.
Then really learning that I had ear for how to pick tracks and how to produce and what musicality they bring on the track and Robert just became my pianist. It’s weird to say that he’s the Herbie Hancock of our generation, as you know, but every everything you’ll ever hear from me, if you hear piano on it, then it’s Robert Glasper, which is pretty huge because asked me for nothing, and I asked him for nothing. He’s definitely one of my tribes, and then in my go-to collaborators’ partners, big A, big R, big T, a dope relationship.

Dimitri: You are in the Canary Islands right now, can you tell us about the project you working there on?

Omari: I am Canarias’s, I’m in Las Palmas. I was saying that I’m doing this movie that is a massive movie. It’s called The Mother. The biggest one I’ve done to date. Obviously, you know of Army of the Dead was quite big as well, but this one is just way bigger. Where we’re now shooting is our third location, but it is probably three to four movies within one movie just in terms of the size.
It’s not like vignette of some different movies in one movie, but it’s starring Jennifer Lopez. There’s a young girl named Lucy Paez, who the world will be forced to take notice of she’s the better parts of 12 years old. There’s Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jesse Garcia, and yours truly. Beautiful film again. Jennifer is surrounded by this Motley Crew of men.
It’s her turn at not only being torn and being a little bit fragmented in terms of being, maybe several characters in one, and trying to figure out how to express those different parts of herself, but she’s the heroine, the protagonist, and perhaps the antagonist, but only of her own character within this film. It’s her born identity if you will that’s fucking hokey to compare to anything else.
It’s her really trying to figure out who she is while on a journey to not only survive, but to take care of a major responsibility that she has to take care of, and getting aid where she can at taking care of this responsibility. My character comes into play at being one of the helpmates to get her down the road and help her get through life. It’s a really, again, a big film and an original film brought to you by Netflix, and of course, Jen’s company plays as a participant in terms of producing.
It’s just been a really sexy thing to be a part of and a really cool gig. We are ending the film on the 19th as in Saturday, but we started it probably mid-September. Then, of course, COVID to your point that you made, COVID pushed the film back a bit, and now we are finishing it finally.

Dimitri: You had a bit of a break because of the COVID, correct?

Omari: Yes, we had a break in January, ironic because it was around my birthday and, it was supposed to be a celebration out here with my castmates, and crew, and the producers and everything. Yes, that moment where Omicron took off a notch, we were affected of course, like a lot of productions, and then we were postponed indefinitely. We would’ve been done probably January 25th, but we went back in about two and a half weeks ago, and again, we’ll be wrapping up on Saturday.
I think paparazzi found their way to us a bit, so some of those pictures came out, of course, on social media and different platforms in the past couple, maybe the past five to six days, couple of the pictures shot out from people here. I think back home on the other side of the pond, there where we all come from and where you are. They all know that it’s out there or that it’s about to really be a gangbuster soon to come, which I’m excited about, but yes, it’s called The Mother.

Dimitri: Who’s the director?

Omari: The director is Niki Caro. Niki, of course, is the famed director, a producer who brought to light and life the New Zealand incredible story Whale Rider, as you know, that Cliff Curtis was in, and the young Lucy of her moment when the world then learned about, and obviously, was seen and nominated for various awards for her performance, and then, of course, Niki went on and directed Charlize Theron and Jeremy Renner in North Country, pretty hefty weight director. It’s been great being surrounded by these powerhouse women.
The producers, Mark Evans, Molly Allen as well again, the team from Netflix, and then Jen and her whole team and, Niki Caro is our director.

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Dimitri: Did you enjoy working with Zach Snyder in Army of the Dead?

Omari: Oh man, with an exhilarating experience. I rarely get to use that word in an interview, exhilarating, but it was, including the moments where you saw him wear various hats. That’s such a different scope from his perspective or from the perspective of a director to have to almost step outside of themselves as one component and then look at themselves as director of photography five minutes after being “simply” the director, “simply.” obviously, I throw quotations around it.
The director’s job on a scale of one to 20 is of course 25. You see him milliseconds later going from being in fact the director, trying to figure it all out and then lighting. Obviously, he was a producer as well, and he’s the writer. You’re talking four hats.
His team of co-writers really dialed in on this one story. If you did see it, definitely in my opinion, it graduated that zombie genre and it was very humbling for me to be able to build this guy with him. I think originally the story goes as such where Dave Bautista was considered for my role of Vanderohe and Dave didn’t really want to go this route. I can’t tell you it’s the genre route. The genre was the issue in terms of route.
I don’t think he had an issue with the genre, I think he just had an issue with maybe remaining in this paradigm, for lack of a better, word that made him feel that he was already, of course, being looked at in a way where people were wondering whether he could prove himself as a serious actor all the way to the moniker of being a thespian.
I think he thought that within a project like this, that, of course, has that zombie following or whatnot, where everybody of course who watches the film, then runs to San Diego to go to ComiCon and take it all in, I think in a smart way, especially with Dave being a cat from DC, respectively, I say that as a compliment, he just didn’t want to be seen as that, and so he said no to it originally because what was told to him of course, from Zach was, “Chances are that if you play Vanderohe, I’m going to need you for the continuance of the story.”
I guess Zach knew that about Vanderohe at least, and then Dave said, “Well, no,” and he said, “I got another part that if you don’t want to continue,” and of course, Scott Ward became that part. Once he gave Dave that part, Debbie who’s the partner of Zach and, of course, his wife, I guess Netflix was really starting to, and it was very flattering for me, but I think Netflix was really starting to really take notice of me and my work and my craft and my journey at that point.
Zach and his wife and the rest of the producing team and his co-writers as well, they went to the Netflix and they all conjoined in the start but again, mostly Zach, they conjoined in the start that Omari would be perfect for Vanderohe. Immediately gained weight because I didn’t want Dave to look like a freaking King Kong next to the rest of the cast and I didn’t think it made sense storywise if I’m a military guy formally and he was my platoon mate, and here he is the better parts of 260 some pounds and I live as an ex-athlete, but a solid 185 pounds.
I’m like on the poster, you can’t go from Dave to Theo Rossi, who lived that 165. I called Zach. Zach is a big workout fanatic, and obviously, not the biggest of frame, but he is the biggest of brain. I didn’t mean to rhyme, but sometimes. His brain just shot right back into this thought of, “Yes.”
That also affords me some thoughts that I have about Vanderohe, where he’s going post the apocalyptic moment of turn one on this movie called Army in the Dead. He said, “Yes, how much can you gain and not jeopardize whatever else?” I said, “I could gain 10,” but even five on me, Zach would be substantial. He said, “All right, let’s try to do it.” As you know, I was a lot bigger in that film.
I think I went to 195 and I did that shit in four weeks, maybe, if that. It was just an exhilarating experience to see again such a mastermind of director. A lot of people don’t really get it, but when you get it, you get it. When I say a lot of people, what I mean is you get a lot of actors, even crew members, whomever, who have a preconceived notion of a director. A lot of times that preconceived notion is simply connected only to “the first meeting” of this director or producer or lead actor or actress.
Obviously, politically correct to say actor for both genders. Until you meet them and work with them, again, all people we’ve mentioned, producers down to lead actors or whatnot, but absolutely the director because you have to humble your shit and really take direction from them, you have this preconceived notion. I am glad that I wasn’t raised to have a lot of preconceived notions about people. I meet them at face value or whatever I get, I get.
Whatever I don’t get, I don’t get. I’m as flawed in the next man, but my antenna and radar is pretty good. Within the first 10 minutes of talking him on the phone, let alone when I got around him, I said, “Well, this experience will change my life,” and it’s done just that. I eagerly, as much as the fans do Dimitri, I eagerly await my time back on a set with Zach, whether it be a sequel to Army to Dead, I can’t speak on that. I’ll be ready if the coach calls, but equally, if it’s just he and I and another project, he is just a special cat and I really admire him to respect him.

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Dimitri: You have portrayed one of my favourite characters James “Ghost” St. Patrick on POWER. How did you take on this role?

Omari: Thank you, man.
It’s interesting because the further you get away just in general, the further you get away from the moment, of course, where you were set for show or audition for it or read or whatever it is that you do, hear from your management team your agency that there is an interest even in you, the further you get away from that moment, it’s like a kid, the further you are from the diaper moment, your kid is now 9 years old, 10 years old, you crave to go back to it, or equally, sometimes you have to be reminded by a loved one or someone who cares or someone who was peripherally around enough to go, “You don’t remember that?”
The further I get away, sometimes I miss the energy that was surrounding that time if it makes sense. I’ll try to explain. There was an energy that was happening in my household. It was at the time my wife being a very concerned that my career, and she didn’t show it, she didn’t show it. She definitely has walked a life and journey the life of bumps and bruises and many of the shattered glass she’s had to step on in her own walk, not connected to me, and then at times connected to me. It wasn’t like she was dramatic about her concern but she definitely felt that my career was stagnant and needed some lift and should have been at a different place that it wasn’t yet. I obviously needed to look in the mirror and decide how much of that was me. I’m a poet so there’s always going to be self-reflection. I don’t really know how to walk life without walking with of the mirror, with the mirror facing my face.
I’m as much like the next man where every other day am trying to– even if I keep the mirror in my hand, I’m trying to like overground it and not really necessarily dive into looking at my shit because it’s harder to grow. Growth comes with discomfort. She started fasting for maybe 20 days or something like that. She was truly fasting and she kept praying. I had to lay a dog down at the time. We had this beautiful pit bull that we had bought. When she was actually losing– we lost our first son, was stillborn.
We were coming out of that and we still had the dog that I got her when the pregnancy wasn’t going well. We’re now three years past the pregnancy, going back still had the dog. Now we have a daughter got back together, found our way back together as a couple, and now had a daughter three, four months old. The day that I had to put dog down was the day that I said no to the meeting for a one 50 Cent, Curtis Jackson project. Ironically, equally the activist side of me showed up the same day.
It was the same day that I recorded film, a PSA that I wrote and that I cast, after producing, I cast a while producing, I cast other actors of note to be a part of for Trayvon Martin when Zimerman, his shooter, was found innocent instead of being charged with the crime of what, I believe, and many obviously believe to be that of murdering Trayvon. I created a PSA and everyone from Eriq La Salle to Bill Duke, to David Oyelowo, Marlon Waynes, Jay Ellis. They all came out and they were all a part of this project that I produced. The same day I filmed that was the same I had to then drive to Pasadena, which was 40 minutes from where I filmed that, laid a dog down crazy. Life-changing, never done that, holding the dog while she’s being put to rest.
After the 20 days of servitude to fasting and her praying, the prayers was specific, “God, please allow Omari to embrace his power and his dominion over this industry.”
They were very specific and those were the prays, “Please allow Omari to embrace his power and dominion over this industry.” Whatever. I prayed with her, I heard the prayer. We take our first vacation post having a kid. My daughter is now nine years old as you and I interview. She was, again, four months, we fly to the Cayman Islands. I think probably a layover in Texas. Yes, it was Texas. She asked me on the layover. She never really asked about stuff like that. She came from producing. She was a young producer, publicist prior but a producer.
At that time, she wasn’t working in the industry, but obviously, again, very in tune to the industry. Never really brought up auditions or meetings or stuff I said no to whatever, she always trusted it, but this particular time, while on the plane, perhaps she turned me on the plane holding the four-month-old daughter said, “Why don’t you take that meeting?”
I could say being an athlete and just wanting the entire team to be fleshed out of cast members or characters I should say, write as a script. There’s no castmates yet but I hate that word so let me say teammates. It was just a moment perhaps equally where I thought of myself coming from stage and being a theater actor, I was like, “We need a whole company to be rocking and rolling,” and here it is.
I had to look in the mirror and go, “Why would I tell her that I told her that? I told her that, so why am I telling her that?” I think what I’m getting at, Dimitri, is up to that point of my career, I promise I would never call in a career until I was 10 years in, so I was absolutely 10 years at that point, maybe not, maybe headed there, I realized that I was always running from being the guy.
Obviously, as you know, even when I was Next Day Air, which is the character of Shavoo is perhaps a precursor to Ghost, but I also was always very comfortable hearing the things that I heard post that movie, which was, “Man, and the sleeper, whatever, is this guy. He stole this scene,” and I’m always big team load eyes. I’m not in this stealing scene from anybody, just show up and do what you do, but those things were easier for me. It was easier for me to not have to be the guy.
I definitely feel that you are the guy, if you’re the guy, but I was running from it. I had to really look in the mirror and go, “What is that thing I’m doing?” I say that, Dimitri, to say that the first season of a show should be the show following the guy. I was wanting the character soon after, months after played by or hired actors come on to then bring to life these other characters on the page that I was wanting. When I read the script, I was wanting those characters to be more fleshed out.
I thought Ghost was pretty fleshed out but I wanted or fleshed out. I wanted the other characters to have the same turn at really actualizing some “Oh, man that character’s dope. What about that character? Oh, these characters all great.” The whole bounty earth, the whole huddle of these characters are absolutely great. Ultimately, I know that the world received that as we became a show show.
I learned very quickly that her prayer was absolutely at hand with her question as to why I didn’t do it. What she was saying is you got to embrace that, you’re the guy, you are what you are. Acting coaches used tell me, “If it walks and talks like a duck.” I used to stare at her and she knew that I would say, “What if it does more than quacls?” She would laugh. She taught me very early without even having to fill in the blank.
It’s got a quack. I think my point Dimitri is that I wanted to be a duck who could quack so many different quacks that you thought of me more as a character actor. I look at Brad Pitt’s career, I look at Hugh Jackman and I’m and you would go, those guys are all leading men, Omari, Brad peer particularly, he might actually be more character actor but he’s stuck in a Ken doll look.
He’s a leading man. He’s an edgy enough cat from St. Louis Missouri with a chip tooth. If he don’t put his cap over it and can go from Fight Club to True Romance, where he’s smoking weed for five seconds and he’s completely different. Then he can play in Meet Joe Black with a perfect Jamaican accent. Brad is often underrated to me. I think so because he’s, sometimes the industry will put parameters or boxes around you and in doing so it’ll make you turn which is bullshit. I’m calling myself out here.
It might have made me see what could have gone down within me and them trying to make me a guy that could only play this one thing. Dimitri would hear me in this interview and go, “It’s interesting because your choice is after Power or even during Power.” Sorry to bother you, it was during Power, to put an eye patch on and grow pork chops and be a character with no name. You go from Jamie, James ‘Ghost’ St. Patrick, the four-headed, if not thirty-headed monster. Then the summer hiatus film, you played Sorry to Bother You. Then you go play Shot Caller, which is the opposite side of the law. Now you’re a parole officer with Jon Bernthal, who became my dearest friend at the time, and Benjamin Bratt, who equally is very close to me. Then you turn around and you go play in A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. with Meagan Good. It’s a 90-minute one-take film, no cuts, one take 90 minutes. 30 pages of dialogue, 60 pages of improv, with Meagan. Qasim Basir directed it courageously. 90 minutes, no cut.
Then you play an apparition, Will Gardner, where Max Martini actually played a character named Ghost, and I play an actual ghost who for the better part is just haunting him as his ex-military comrade asking him what he’s looking for in life now that he’s a vet and trying to figure life out. What is he really looking for? I just haunt him throughout the film. Both of those films, there’s four of them, all of those films, I should say, were done between season 3 and season 4 of Power.
Then I go back and put on that guy named Ghost who had 30 heads to where. There’s just so much in me, Dimitri. The industry is not real big on allowing people to show everything that’s in them. I’ve just always been a believer of what Jay was praying— what the wife was praying was, she was praying for my power and my dominion. If you really pray for that, you got to be careful with what not only you pray for in terms of her praying, but you got to be freaking careful with what you embrace or don’t embrace. I guess I embraced her prayer enough and lo and behold, of course, again I did not know the title of the show.
Coming back from Cayman, great time again, daughter’s four months old, I think I invited Elmo into her life on that trip and that’s when I found Elmo on YouTube, here I am as a papa finding Elmo and then on route back having the manager call, same manager who agreed with me that we should say no. The manager calls and says, “That team won’t take no for an answer.”
The team was Courtney Kemp, Agboh at the time she was married. I know it was a gender-neutral name but my spirit said it was a woman. My manager said, “Let me find out whether it’s a woman or who it is.” He called back and he said, “It is a woman. It’s a Black woman.” I said, “A Black woman created this show and I don’t know her?” He said, “Yes, you want to meet with her? I said, “Fucking absolutely.” I met with her.
Within the first 10 minutes of meeting with her, I knew I would say yes to her. Brown University graduate. She comes from the school of that and Curtis is not only from the school of hard knocks but he graduated valedictorian, if not salutatorian, and then there’s Omar who lives in the middle of that upbringing that he grew up in but also being an educated cat who happened to have a former life as a football player who as Spike Lee on job number one said was a serious thespian and that I needed to lose the 200 pounds to be taken serious as such.
I lived in the middle of she and Curtis and I thought, “Oh, this is different.” Once I learned Chris Albrecht and Carmi Zlotnick, who were the heads of Starz, formerly from HBO, obviously, knowing the success they had an HBO, it was a no-brainer that I was being stupid when deciding not to do it prior. Then the final culmination of aha moments that I should do it was the conversation with Curtis, which took about an hour.
I was back home in Atlanta, the city that had raised me, with Jay and my daughter. I talked to Curtis for an hour and that was it. It definitely made me work for it and I continued to work for it in that first season because for the better parts of that first season, Dimitri, I was 18 hours on set.
Sometimes Joseph, he would be at about 12 to 14. Again, as you know, they were really having to dive into the main character that first year.
Obviously, there were a lot of hours, man. I was a brand new papa and that was hard for me and trying to juggle that. Everything was brand new.

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Dimitri: Did you sleep at all during the first season?

Omari: Not in the first two years. The first two years they were in and I would get up. You had a partner at the house saying, “Go back to sleep.” I would say no because I wanted to hold my daughter before it started all over again. That first year, they probably pushed me– I don’t know if you know what that is, when they push you– the actor has a 12-hour turnaround that not only is the production is legally bound to adhere into, but it’s very rare that you’re going to be asked as an artist to push much more than two to three times in a season for a show or three to four times within a six-month period if it’s a film.
I remember my– she was really cool. One of the PAs did a great job of keeping up with all of the times I was asked to push. Then, of course, my business manager, obviously allocating my funds into whatever spaces were needed to have those funds be of such where we could live in New York, and then still hold a house in LA, and not go fucking broke. She was saying, “I think they’ve asked you to push 36 times.”
We only shot eight episodes that first year. You’re talking 18-hour work-days, sleep nine hours, asked me to not get the legal 12-hour turn around, push nine hours, try to hold it over for, I don’t know, an hour before the van was down in front before the PA called, before the second AD calls and says, “Your truck is downstairs awaiting.” I definitely did that for the better part of those eight episodes. 36 times they asked me to push. There was a lot of that.
Then season 2 was brutal. I loved it because they fleshed out, obviously, Tommy a lot more that year so Joseph was with me a lot. I had more company being on set. We became close that season two when his character really jumped off the page. Then, of course, Naturi and Lela, their characters started jumping off the page in season 3 and season 4, as you know. I started seeing the team get fleshed out better and I started seeing guest stars get fleshed out better and I could take a breather.
By season 4, it was a great moment for me because I dove back into the music to the point I made to you. Then diving into the music going into season 4. I dove into the music but all of a sudden, which was helping me because I needed therapy by that point. I mean playing Ghost, and again, I’m playing four other characters during the breaks in playing Ghost on these other films. Nobody thinks about that. For sure.
The fans don’t really know when you’re doing a film. Therapy became it wasn’t a shrink session so to speak, but studio is until four in the morning. I was in jail so it was great because in jail you could only bring Omari in three times a week. I shot three times a week. I was off two times a week. Those two times a week I was off I was at the studio making two to five songs a night and becoming addicted to it which also wasn’t helping hold out.
That was my turn on Power. Ghost was a lot of people and Omari is a lot of people. The meeting of Omari and Ghost, there’s been a lot. It’s cool to see people receive Ghost the way they do in terms of never letting that guy go but it’s equally cool to have a lot of people tilting their head and looking at Gordon and watching Gordon, obviously, the character in Pieces of Her, and just watching such a different turn.
Even Vanderohe in Army of the Dead as you know people who won’t let go of Ghost, they’re going look at Vanderohe in Army of the Dead and say, “I saw Ghost, his face.” For some odd reason, Dimitri, they think that my face is not the face that I was birthed with out of my mama’s stomach.
That shit is crazy. It’s my face. If you get a look out of your present face they decide that it is the face of a character that is fantastic and fictional. Yes, it is a fascinating thing for me to experience. It’s really amazing. You look at the guy, Gordon, in Pieces of Her and never is there quite a face that looks like the face that I made when I would play Ghost. I guess Gordon is just really that different. Finally, even within my own culture, I’m proud to see people going “Oh, he’s really an actor. Oh, okay.”
It’s been a beautiful journey for me but it’s also been a great learning lesson as to how people see themselves. Honestly, Dimitri, the way people see you or hear you while you’re interviewing me, the same way that they look at me while they’re looking at me on Sunday night, and then all of a sudden, looking at me differently on this new Sunday night and a new character within a new space across from a legend of a thespian named Toni Collette, it definitely tells on the way they see themselves when they brush their teeth in the morning.
It just is a very interesting learning experience for me this whole thing that I never really ran into after college. I didn’t think I’d be an actor and here we are. You’re interviewing me about it.

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Dimitri: There are still some fan theories that Ghost survived and might come back.

Omari: God bless the love. The love is just amazing. I guess fan is short for fanatic. Fanatical is the word, right? Fan is an abbreviated, amalgamated whatever because some fans are truly fans, you know what I mean?
These are fans like, “What did you eat today? How did you eat it? Who’s that in that picture with you? Man, I read about this. I heard your mom is sick. I’m praying for her.” Those are real fans. I want to see you do all kinds of things. I don’t want to relegate you about you but the one thing that’s a fan to me. Equally, I have to and we have to. I’ll speak for anyone who’s a teammate of mine, Jennifer Lopez included. I got to speak for her too because I don’t think I’ve been with a teammate as big in the fame status since her. I haven’t, there’s been nobody more famous than her whom I’ve worked with so I need to speak for her and she wouldn’t be mad in saying this. We all have a learning curve in the fan who is a fanatical fan. That’s a learning curve for us, especially for those of us who come from the meager reality or the meek and the walks of life that are really mundane and there are some hard knocks and some rocky roads.
Those of us who don’t come from silver spoons or we don’t really know that life, Dimitri. You know that, and so all of a sudden we know this life where everything we do smells good and our shit doesn’t stink. That is a lot to take on. Biggie Smalls said it best. He didn’t mean money, more money, more problems, he meant all of it, all of it. It’s been a beautiful experience as people always say, “Oh man, oh, so humble.” I’m like, “I’m a fan of the fan.” You dig what I’m saying, Dimitri?

Dimitri: Absolutely.

Omari: I’m a fan of the fan. Like, wow, you’re a fan, I’m a fan of that, wow, take it all. Count it all joy.

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Dimitri: Can you tell us about your experience working with Spike Lee?

Omari: Speaking of the word amalgamation. I teased him right before I started Army of the Dead. I just come off from doing the– I narrated Dapper Dan’s life story. I was doing that while trying to do the season six Rashōmon turn that Courtney, our show’s creator, had added to the reason that I call it six and a half seasons when people say, “Omari, how long were you on Power”?
It could have been absolutely counted as the seventh season, but as you know, that’s short so who shot ghost or who did this? That’s that Rashōmon turn, which was really cool, that’s what she chose to do, and it made me have to stick around with the other teammates for those six episodes when Ghost was actually shot. In the most childlike way, I found the stress alleviated immediately when I went to hang out with Spike one day because I had finally finished all of these recordings that I was doing for Dapper Dan’s audiobook.
I actually brought a cut in the final two nights and we did 36 hours straight. We ordered in pizza, different things or whatever, this is beautiful studio that had heard the likes of everybody from Springsteen to Janet, to Michael, to Beyonce. Everybody that touched one of those rooms at that studio. I know Fat Joe, I interviewed him for the podcast that I did for Luminary, I had that podcast called Poetics that I hosted in.
I did one day Fat Joe and then Fat Joe left, and then I went right into narrating seven more hours of Dapper Dan’s book, and then I, again, brought in that cut and I did 36 hours straight to finish pre-going to get wardrobe for Army of the Dead. Finally finished Power, did American Skin with Nate Parker, did American Skin by episode 13 of season 6, and then doing that 13, I think was Joseph’s episode, meaning the Tommy perspective
They allowed me to go do Nate Parker’s film American Skin and so I did the table read which Courtney makes everybody be a part of no matter what. I did the table read. She was going to let me miss it but I said, “No, it’s Joe so I want to be on the phone at least.” I did the phone call and then I get a phone call from Spike right after that and, ultimately, when I left LA and I did a song that Snoop Dogg put on the title, on the soundtrack for American Skin.
That song is called American Skin that I did. As soon as I got off the phone, I’m doing the table read for Joseph’s perspective episode, Spike called and said, “I need you to be one of the keynotes or one of the people that comes on stage for the infamous legendary Brooklyn day festival/parade.” It was the 25th anniversary of Do the Right Thing at that point.
I think it was 25 years, it was. Rosie Perez was there, Danny Aiello. It was so crazy. Ironically, I’m sitting next to a brother of mine who’s from Brooklyn. He’s from Bensonhurst, a real Brooklynite and so the joyous moment for me after being so stressed out between trying to make sure I was there for Joe on the table read, and not being nonpresent but then equally being super present for American Skin where I played, of course, a guy that was riddled with cancer, trying to help Nate Parker’s very, very strong character.
Then knowing that Army of the Dead I had already signed on, I’d already talked to Zach Snyder at that point. Knowing that was next, once Power said goodbye to me, which was June 7th when they said goodbye, and then all of a sudden, prior to going to get my wardrobe put together for a band which I told Spike I had to do. He said, “If you could just stop by even for 30 minutes.” I had to get to the airport to get to New Mexico where we did their shoot.
If could stop by for 30 minutes and I’m about to explain to you Spike Lee in the nutshell, he said,” I’ll be so happy and so appreciative.” I got there and damn near missed the flight because the 30 minutes when you’re with Spike Lee, he goes,” I said 30 minutes?” I said, “Spike, you said 30 minutes.” He said, “No, I need you like an hour and 30 minutes.” I said, “Spike, you are being so Brooklyn right now. This is so Brooklyn of you.” He goes,” No, I need you another hour.”
I put in another hour and, of course, I had the time of my life, as I always do, when I’m with him but it’s been a long friendship because he’s movie number one, as you know, 2003, myself and Anthony Mackie, Ben Crowley, Lemon, the great poet, Lemon, Ken Leung, speaking of Hugh Jackman who’s from the Xmen series and Malieek Straughter, and Darris Love, and César Charlone who shot City of Gods also was one of the camera operators on Man on Fire with Denzel, Tony Scott.
He was my DP number one and Spike Lee was my boss number one. I come from a fucking pedigree, if not the silver spoon upbringing, it felt like a silver spoon on movie number one. He then, obviously, had me on Miracle at St. Anna, as you know, and we shot that in Italy, and then you turn around and now he was showing me off to his native Brooklyn because in his mind Omari had become–
I think a lot of Brooklynites feel this way. Jay and I were raised in Brooklyn and then our son came in Brooklyn and we moved to Long Island City, but we were Brooklynites and we were New Yorkers. Atlanta definitely made me, LA I found a lot of what I needed to in LA, but I found theater in New York, and then, equally, I was made to be a notable human who can’t really walk around on this earth, in the same way, I could 12 to 15 years ago, all in as you know New York City, as much as Derrick Jeter’s from Michigan.
Derek Jeter is New York, as much as Omari is from Atlanta, Omari is New York. I think so many of my comrades in life have embraced how much I’ve embraced not only them, but they’re New York. Again, I’m saying this next to a New Yorker who they know I’m from the South but they’re like, “You’re forever New Yorker.” It was a beautiful eight-year-old moment for Spike to not only talk me into staying a longer amount of time like the very seductory style of his manner will do, he will seduce you into doing a movie for $5, but you come out of it the wiser, the better, the stronger, the smarter.
He’s just been a joyous, crazy juggernaut of a human being to be around. Of course, it’s about seven-foot-tall, even if sometimes he forgets that he is. He is a very smart guy and we argue and debate and talk sport. He’s been a great brother to have in my life even when I’m not on set with him.

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Dimitri: You just wrapped up another film for Netflix, Pieces of Her, with Toni Collette, you’ve been doing a lot of projects with Netflix recently. Are you enjoying the pace of production with Netflix?

Omari: That’s a great question, Dimitri. That’s a great question, bro.

Dimitri: Netflix changed. Let’s face it, the platform has changed the way we see everything these days from film to the TV series and stuff. If you want to binge you can binge, really. What’s your take on working with the platform, do they give you more freedom to express yourself?

Omari: It definitely gives you more freedom. It’s an interesting thing because, Dimitri, I look at myself in the mirror and I go, “God, why did you make me be–” I’m so cool with God having decided I would make money out of being an artist because even an athlete is an artist and they don’t get enough credit for being called an artist, particularly, ones who are really special at their craft and a historian of whatever they’re doing. They’re an artist then. Let’s go a step further and call them artisans. I love that God made me where I could embrace or made me strong enough to not run from his challenge. I have for you a massive platform of giving back and reaching back in aid of young kids, particularly, those of a color similar to yours, Brown and Black, or even of socioeconomic, even if that’s White kids, for example, who socioeconomically can relate to the plight and the struggle of being Black or Brown, at least financially or lack thereof, their parents not having money.
I’m going to give you this opportunity to really reach out to and reach over to and reach across to and reach back and forward to and up and down if you really embrace fame. Because I always think celebrity is given by man, Dimitri, but I think fame is given by God. I don’t care about people listening or reading this interview and not believing there’s something higher or bigger than themselves. It’s okay.
I pray for them equally. Not from a religious standpoint, just from a spirit space of wanting their life to be the best life they can possibly have. I just simply know that’s probably doesn’t come into you answer the call of what you’re supposed to do on earth, purpose-wise, not workwise, purpose-wise. Once I embraced it, fame, and I was like, “Okay,” that allows for the stage to be bigger. You know what happened, Dimitri? The construct that I had of what I would look like as an actor in this business, I had a thought of how I would look and the construct I had. Obviously, God has an incredible sense of humor. Of course, you make a plan and he laughs at it. The construct or vision I had or visual was that of yesteryear. I’m talking Paul Newman, I’m talking Denzel because he looks like me and being an African American actor, Black actor, Black American actor and whether it was James Earl Jones, whether it was Morgan Freeman, whether it was Danny Glover all the way to Yaphet Kotto, all the way over to Don Cheadle to Will Smith. What have you, Jeffrey Wright.
A lot of these Black actors or Black artists who I looked at, for me, it was an opportunity for me to go, “Yes. Okay. There’s a model there of someone who looks like me.” Not that I didn’t think Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and freaking Robert De Niro would not just cuts me out because I do. Yes, I do. If you look like a person, then that dreaming person, kid, teenager, young adolescent, or a young adult, they’re able to say, “Okay, I can see myself in this space.” Dimitri, the space I saw myself was that a big screen. It was that a big screen.
Dare I say, in my generation, brother, our last movie star for our age group, maybe Leonardo DiCaprio, I think it’s Leo. I’m not talking against anybody else who could be considered in that space, but that last thing of movie stardom, Leo DiCaprio. Then that Netflix enters into a space where I then went, “Oh, I got it, God, I got it.” Leo could be this massive movie star because the mystique that he possesses is that of, he possesses this mystique of being, I guess, like if he goes to Whole Foods and somebody gets to meet him, but they are meeting him through a whisper because he’s on that massive screen, Dimitri, and that massive screen allowed for distance.
He was headed towards his massive screeness pre-social media. That distance allows him to remain of mystique, allowing them to go. “I think that’s Leo.” Dimitri, that was the visual I had. Getting cut from football, trying my hand at theater, going into these faces of not being someone who wanted to be number one in a call sheet, but was cool with number seven to number four. Then all of a sudden embracing Ghost.
That character changed my life, maintaining my craft by doing nine jobs while playing Ghost. Ghost was the one I thought in a way while social media was making me also think this way, damn, there’s never a moment again where I can visualize myself the way I see Leo when I go watch his movies and then enter Netflix.
You said it best. I am now, bro, in this moment where I’m hired four times in a row by this company that, Dimitri, while on the phone in real-time, next to a Brooklynite who I said, I can relate to his reception of me being a native New Yorker, even though I’m from the same coast as him, but from the bottom of that coast, being Atlanta, Georgia, not from the deep South, but from the Southern part of that coast and equally embraced that everybody now would say, “Omari, Starz didn’t hire you twice. Starz hired you once.” TNT hired you twice, but Netflix, they hired you four times. Dimitri, you know what I realize, in real-time while talking to you, that is the modern-day big screen. In real-time while talking to you, that is the modern– And I don’t plan answers. I don’t like to be prepped for interview. I don’t want to know what the question is going to be. I’m sure you can tell that. My brain is too swift to need that. What I do know is in the swiftness of my brain, in real-time in this interview, I’m like, and that’s not necessarily the same as what Leo was going through. The mystique, dare I say again, the separation that he has from the fans.
I don’t have the same separation nor do my colleagues who are benefiting from the newness of what the big screen looks like. The big screen being the screen. That again, is that of Sunday, sweet or salty, you pick, oh, your cast, your couch mate, while watching this cast and the crews work on this particular project and the producer and directors work, and that everybody else involves work on the Sunday night, your partner might be someone who likes the peanuts and the red wine. You might like the sweets and the whiskey or beer, whatever you partake while watching, if you can watch Omari now four times in a row, in different roles on one platform.

Dimitri: Absolutely.

Omari: Then that for me is like, I just had to adjust and I was born a little old soul and sometimes that’s a curse for me. That’s not always a great thing. I had to get better at understanding the business. Times will change and the times truly have changed. What we know is that’s when Netflix has afforded itself, the opportunists that Netflix is everybody else follows suit. Now you got Amazon. Now you got Apple. Now you got HBO Max. It’s not even HBO anymore. It’s HBO Max. Streaming services has become just that.
For them to hire me four times in a row, I definitely think, to answer your question, that there were moments where the pace might be that which was like, “Man,” but then equally I understand now I was able to do four movies and they’re all different characters in the way that if it were Leo, if he’s our generation’s last movie star, he would’ve needed two years after that to do the next movie.
Then two years after that, to do the next movie, then two years after that, to do the next movie. So on and so forth. I know you are just me probably on another end of this call nodding in agreement.
It’s true, Leo does a blockbuster. He does The Wolf of Wall Street. Cool. Then he waits about a year and a half. Then he does something else. Then you go back, it was The Departed. Then you go over there, it’s The Revenant with Tom Hardy. It’s an interesting thing to see him do four movies that were all on a big screen, but to probably do them in four years. Dimitri, I’ve done freaking four movies on Netflix and only two years. That’s how big and how viable Netflix is and everyone else has followed suit. In real-time, I’m answering this question and learning while talking like, “Oh, there it is. Okay, that’s what it is”
I’m very proud and very humbled that I can do what I can do with Toni Collete, and then go right in from Toni Collette, to another heroin in Halle and then go from Halle Berry to another heroin in Jennifer Lopez. By the way, what did I just name three women? Let’s go back to that yesteryear I thought I had. I named all of these men who I could get a visual of. Even if the men didn’t look like me like Paul Newman or De Niro or Redford or Steve McQueen, they absolutely were men. Now the sudden hats off to the industry for finally giving women that due diligence. It’s a stronger, smarter, and brighter gender anyway.
Any man who thinks we’re more powerful than women, I got to have a long beer with them because they’re off. No man can compare to a woman so for them to be getting that and for me to think like a male feminist, because I am a male feminist, and to be able to hold my own with these powerful women three in a row, and then prior to that, Army of the Dead on one platform, bro. Netflix sees me as much as I see them and that is always been a whole true gain truly recognizes gain.

Dimitri: That’s amazing.

Omari: I’m very respectful to Netflix, and always will be indebted equally as much as I am to Starz and it will be the core. Courtney, Curtis. Obviously, Chris Albrecht, and Carmi and my teammates in that show.

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Dimitri: If you don’t mind, I will like to ask you one more question. If you had a chance to give your younger self advice, what sort of advice would you give yourself?

Omari: How could you ask any good-ass question, Dimitri? You might say, Omari that’s a proverbial question that many people have asked. It’s true. I don’t get asked that one a lot.
I would tell my younger self to slow down more. That’s what I would have told my younger self. It’s interesting, somebody asked me yesterday, she’s a part of this project. She’s one of our star girls, and she asked me, She said, “Omari can you tell me what you think is needed for a person to jump to that next stratosphere like that other level?” I said because it’s all relative. Everyone’s level there’s a new level, a new level, new devils in my opinion, and then new levels, new shovels, meaning you got to dig deeper to maintain that level that you’re now at.
I told her, in a nutshell, that it will cringe when those moments where you have to marry the humility that you might have, that equally can be a handicap that you got to marry that humility to that moxie and that audacity to just be something of such renegade exclusivity that you walk in a room and no one walks in having the thing you have, but if you have too much humility, now you end up apologizing for that thing you just walked in the room having. It takes a lot of years and a lot of time and an arduous, toil and tumultuous left and right turns, wrong and right, to figure out how to marry those two together.
There’s that moment where you realize you got to grab again, your moxie by the horns, your audacity to be different. Dare to be different. Maybe back to Jay’s prayer, when you really start to figure out your power here to me, and it’s really, a lot of people get so messed up. They think that is power over another human being, it’s not, It’s only power over oneself. ‘To thine own self be true,’ ‘to be or not to be,’ not a lot of better poets than Shakespeare so he said it best and I think I will look at young self and I will say, “Young self, it takes a minute to really figure out.”
Ironically, I’m saying that with you, Dimitri, knowing that mine was so not an overnighter. I am this 18-year career almost 19-year career had a lot of people have to go back and shout outs to Hulu and Netflix to then play my old movies that my younger fans have to go “Oh, shit he’s been working a long time. I was running my ass off way fast. I was really, really right. It was going really, really slow, and I like this marathon that looks like I’m just exploding and I’m in my 40s still playing 30 but here I’m in my 40s and my career has just really taken off, in my opinion. Yet, I remember the young Omari and I was freaking racing a marathon. Definitely had wise people telling me it’s a marathon though, you’re good. It’s hard to tell a Capricorn that. We don’t mind the process.
Equally, there was that ambitious self and that ambitious young self, I would have said, slow down a little bit, because now that I’m a father, I look at them, and I’m like, “Shit, how did they go from one year old to nine, seven?” My son is seven on the 23rd, as in this upcoming Monday. My daughter turned nine in November. I just remember being at least 29 and 29 it was movie number one and I’m almost 20 years after that. I would definitely say just slow down a bit. You might just slow it down. Take it easy. I put a lot of pressure on myself that I probably didn’t need to.