Interview: Omari Hardwick Calls His 'Power' Character 'Beautifully Tragic'

Keith Murphy

VIBE interviewed actor Omari Hardwick on the set of Power, a Starz series premiering this summer (executive-produced by 50 Cent). Watch Omari explain his lead role above.

On being cast as the main character James "Ghost" St. Patrick
"As soon as I came on, [50 Cent] and Courtney Kemp Agboh, the show creator, let it be known that their choice was me a while ago. It’s 11 years into the career and Spike Lee [was] my first boss in ‘03. To have Spike say 'I think this guy has it.' I think 50 looked at the years of my work and said, 'I think Omari is nutty enough [laughs], powerful enough, bright enough.' Ghost has to be a lot of different things so I’m extremely humbled that 50 and Courtney thought I could carry this cast."

On Ghost's personality and what motivates him
"I always go into a character thinking, if it scares me I can do it. I think at the end of the day I was thirsty for all sides of this guy, for the father in him, for the bad in him, for the good in him, for where he could go, where the other characters surrounding me could go. I didn’t want to just do a show where my character stood out and other characters were flat or one-to-two-dimensional. I wanted everybody to have meat."
"This guy was so colorful and he was living his life where he had to figure out how to be truthful while still telling a lie. That’s the thing that attracted me most to it. The drug element, the cheating element, he’s having an affair... I like to think he’s having an affair with life, not just with a woman or not just with the drugs on the side. Pretty amazing character, and like you said he is as tragic as anybody we’ve ever seen in Shakespeare. He’s beautifully tragic."