Advice To Actors Trying To Break Into Hollywood by Omari Hardwick
Now in SHOT CALLER in Select Theaters and On Demand August 18th, 2017
Film Courage: Omari, for other actors watching your career right now you are making it look very easy, which I know you’ve talked about how it has not been easy for you. But you’re in SHOT CALLER movie, you’re on the show POWER and you have all these projects in the works. Let’s talk about the hypothetical LA friend that a lot of us have who is a talented, hard working actor but they can’t get in a room because they are not represented by the right agency. What’s your advice for that person?
Omari Hardwick: Great way to start an interview, first of all. That’s interesting because tonight (for example) I am inviting friends who got off the Hollywood Dream Bus with me. Who never were necessarily able to execute anything. You know it’s interesting because they will be at the screening tonight for this film [SHOT CALLER with Omari Hardwick as Kutcher] and it’s one of those things where we don’t have the same level in common in conversation as we once had because life has happened for me differently. I had to really check in with myself in terms of the team personality in me thought that (and I’ve always been a part of sports) everybody that got off the dream bus with me and what I mean by that is around the same month that you get off the Dream Bus and you come to LA or New York to make things happen you get a collective of friends and y’all start to run the audition circuit and slowly certain people’s pace slows down and others keep going. My big thing is always (to the people that I am inviting tonight and to as you said those aspiring actors), my wisdom and advice was always first and foremost, if you can wake up without wanting to do this…you have one morning where you wake up and go “Oh…I don’t really want to do this.” I would say get out because it’s way too difficult!
Somebody could ask me are there moments of that being defined as being discouraged and I will go No…everybody is discouraged. Everybody calls home and goes “I don’t know if I should become a rocket scientist or as a woman if I should continue in this world of men and corporate spectrums or law or medicine or what have you. People all get discouraged including myself and asking Mom and Dad if I should come back home (very early in my journey out here). But I think in terms of the representation part I decided to not (and this is really my wisdom to them) to not really worry about it. My thought was it looked like it was easier for me than it was because I really pressed hard at the craft, the work, the acting classes, making sure that I was in martial arts classes if I could add that to the repertoire box or the box of tools that I could dig into if I needed to work on the piano because one day I could play a character where I play the piano. Just work on the craft and don’t necessarily worry about the representation. It will find you. The right agent will find you. The right manager.
But now am I struggling in terms of wanting even bigger out of my career while there are people not where I’m at going “You look like you made it?” I don’t know what ‘make it’ is?
I’m satisfied. I am so humbled and thankful to God that I’m where I am at but it’s always more and so if you focus on the more being attained by making sure that you do more for yourself, then I don’t necessarily think that the representation should matter. Again, I think they definitely will always find you.
Film Courage: Excellent. Thank you. Wow!
Omari Hardwick: Thank you!
SHOT CALLER follows the harrowing, often heart-rending journey of successful businessman Jacob Harlon (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who is transformed into Money, a stoic, ruthless prison gangster after a DUI sends him down the rabbit hole of the American prison system. As he navigates the brutality of his new home, adapting to its violent codes of ethics and rites of passage that will ensure his survival, he slowly loses his previous identity and his relationship to his former life, including his wife and son. The grip of his new family, the prison gang, extends beyond the prison walls. Upon his release, chased by the law enforcement, threatened by his incarcerated “protectors,” Money must orchestrate one last dangerous crime. All is not what it seems. The ruthless process of fulfilling his obligations also becomes his path to sacrifice, retribution and self-definition.
Directed by: Ric Roman Waugh
Written by: Ric Roman Waugh
Produced by: Michel Litvak, Gary Michael Walters, Jonathan King, Ric Roman Waugh Executive Producer: Lisa Zambri, Matthew Rhodes, Tucker Tooley
Casting Director: Mary Vernieu
Cinematographer: Dana Gonzales
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Omari Hardwick, Lake Bell, Jon Bernthal, Emory Cohen, Jeffrey Donovan, Evan Jones, Benjamin Bratt, and Holt McCallany
SHOT CALLER in Select Theaters and On Demand August 18th, 2017
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