Omari Hardwick
My dad was really complex, and I was raised by that. My mom is really bright - very book bright - and so those things collide... I learned that I could put all of that stuff together in the world of acting, and I could make a dollar at it.Collection: Dad
As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it's very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.Collection: Positive
I was trying to pay the bills with poems, and it was easy to memorize my poems, because I'd be riding my bike in California trying to memorize them before going on stage at a poetry lounge.Collection: Poetry
Shoes make an outfit; they're like rims for a car.Collection: Car
Poetry has, in a way, been my bridge to my acting career.Collection: Poetry
I would honestly say I'm in the turtle's race. My journey is a marathon.
Some of the most amazing people I've met in life are cops.
People are fond of that 'crabs in a barrel' mentality, and I'm like, 'No, there needs to be more so we can create more barrels; there doesn't need to be one barrel.'
Unlike many Californians or New Yorkers, college football is a religion down south.
Know that the tattoos are all significant. They're all extremely insignificant. I can't break each one down, but it's 20 years. The first one was 21 years of age from a football teammate.
I know that Donald Trump is a smart man.
When it's all said and done, I am secure enough with my manhood to say to the world, 'I am a male actor, and its okay for me to play a gay man.'
I was going from Furman to the University of Georgia. I transferred to play football.
I grew up in Decatur, Georgia. We had three boys in the household; actually, it felt like four of us. My pops sort of raised my uncle, too. So, it was four boys and, later, a younger sister.
You know, I think anybody who has been in relationships has access to heartbreak - I don't think we have to go far to find it, whether we inflicted the heartbreak or whether we were the recipient of it.
If reality shows are so popular, that means their viewers are screaming for more realness.
The way the recession has affected Hollywood, a lot of actors that had robust opportunities before in film no longer have such plum options, so cable has done a good job of becoming a happy medium for artists deemed film actors.
For me, I'm always looking for the opportunity for a character that challenges me and lets me play two for the price of one.
What we have as artists is the immortalization opportunity that others don't have, because our work is lasting; it's there forever to view.
When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.
I think, by nature you know, I'm very attracted and I gravitate toward the very strong girl who can watch a ballgame, but who's also extremely feminine.
I've been described as a smart actor because I've attended college. Or I've been called an artsy jock. And I am thinking, 'So, are actors supposed to be dumb?'
Actors are intelligent. Yet, many of them do not communicate well. That's what makes it so hard to have a relationship with one.
As a poet, I would always hear emcees come up to me and say, 'Yo, you should rap,' and I was like, 'No.' You know, the label was tough for me. I'm a poet. I was proud of that distinction between the two, not wanting to be the other.
For a long time, I had been very secretive about a lot of the things I'd been through personally, and a lot of that is purposeful. My fan base, for the large part, is the younger generation. They're like, 'I want to know everything! I want to know it all!'
I was at UGA playing with Champ Bailey and Hines Ward - both guys who will probably touch the Hall of Fame one day.
I use Aveeno cleansers and moisturizers.
I think Gil Scott-Heron is a king. He's a brilliant, broken king.
I don't think you really have chemistry in the way that you want between two actors unless frustration is there as well.
I'd done 'Peter Pan' in a little pre-K class or whatever.
I found poetry at 12 and 13 and, lo and behold, learned that my attorney father had a background in poetry - as he wore dashikis and Afros in the '70s and named his kids Arabic names. He was a poet and a lot like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and all of these folks. He definitely was an artist.
I think the universe just brings people around others they find to be interesting.
When I think about the person who's been most in my ear, it's Joe Dumars.
I always had an interest in telling stories.
To make your own family is just the most empowering thing ever. It's the greatest thing you can ever pull off.
Life as a poet and actor truly became full circle as I stood on stage as host of 'Verses & Flow' and lived in both of these outfits. It was one of the best experiences of my professional life.
Real to Reel is a rare opportunity for new filmmakers to screen their work for industry insiders.
I'm such a carnivorous researcher as an actor - I chew it up like it's meat, and I really don't know how to do that without the people that are producing or creating or writing that which they want me to chew up.
I'm safe where I'm at just being the guy where people go, 'That's a really good actor. What's his name again?' I liked being at that place.
The reality is our story and the way we love and our taste in clothing and everything else. And what we ambitiously feel we can be.
I have very much been a guy who's acknowledged how many women have directed me, have produced... it's been unbelievable.
Women are so necessary for us in terms of support.
Deciding to not attach ourselves to something that doesn't appropriately represent us is extremely powerful.
You can't look at the dollar and say, 'I'm not what I dreamed of being unless I do this type of movie and it's a blockbuster that gives me this amount of dollars.' That's not good.
If you remain open to great directors who look like you, who know what they're doing and are making impactful films that are destroying these 'blockbuster films,' you can do okay, and everybody can get more of a piece of the pie. But you've got to be open and brave.
Women are amazing lovers.
A powerful person is equally cool with their flaws and things that aren't powerful about them at all.
I come from the stage, so I started in New York, lived there for eleven years.
I did 'Fences' off-broadway at the Beacon Theater, so it's amazing that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis brought it to Broadway.
I worked on the workshop of 'Topdog/Underdog' before it went to Broadway. My minor in school was theater, so I'm based in that, and then I moved to Los Angeles.