Hello.
This is Omar Dorsey, and I play Hollywood on "Queen Sugar."
You're watching OWN's "20 Questions."
I did have a nickname.
My nickname used to be and still is
Big O. I think you can understand
why they call me that.
Also I had a nickname in high school
when I used to try to be a rapper.
My name was Osky Wosky D. That's a horrible nickname,
but people still call me Osky Wosky.
The one thing I cannot live without
is gonna sound so generic, but it is my cell phone.
My whole life is on my cell phone.
I mean I can lose my wallet before I lose my cell phone.
My whole world is in there.
But yeah, that's the one thing I cannot live without.
I think the moment that I was most proud
of myself was at the Oscars.
I think it was 2016 or 2017 when we were nominated
for Best Picture for "Selma."
It was the first time I worked with Ava.
I have lifelong friends from that film,
and we were all celebrating together at Paul Garnes'.
A comedy actually won the Oscar.
Tessa Thompson, everybody, Colman Domingo,
Andre Holland, Wendell Pierce.
Everybody was in that film.
I won't even start naming, but Niecy Nash was in there.
But we were all together for that.
It was that last time that we were all together,
and man, it was just such a proud moment because it
was a very important film.
And it was just a tremendous night.
The advice I would give to my teenage self?
I think it's just to understand what patience really means.
You know when I was a kid, I wanted everything so fast.
I wanted everything so sudden, without even just sitting back
and learning as much as I can.
I think I didn't do that until I got to about 25, 26.
I just wanted everything right then.
Everything was instant gratification.
Let me get everything I can right now instead of sitting
back, being quiet, and learning from people who
were trying to teach me things.
If I could be anything else in the world,
I would be a college professor, because I want to inspire.
I want to teach younger people.
I want to dive deeper in whatever
I choose to teach, whether it's acting,
whether it's finance, whether it's education.
No matter what it is, I would like to just--
and that'd give me time to learn more,
that'd give me time to study more.
I think when it's all said and done,
when I'm 65, 70 years old, I'll be somewhere at somebody's
college campus with the leather things on my elbow,
on my jacket, and I'll be teaching a class somewhere.
My hype song is Ludacris' "Number One Spot."
That song really-- it pushes me.
It does, you know.
"I'm coming for that number one spot."
Whether I'm in the gym or whatever.
Back in the days when I used to have to go to auditions, that
was my song that I played, because I was like,
I'm coming for it, I'm coming.
I'm going for it.
It's what other people would say Eminem's "Lose Yourself"--
that's my Eminem's "Lose Yourself"
is Ludacris' "Number One Spot."
If I could have dinner with two people dead or alive,
it would be Socrates, and it would
be Alexander of Macedonia, Alexander the Great.
I want to learn from Socrates.
You know what?
I'm gonna even x out Alexander, and I'll
say Hannibal of Carthage, because you know,
he changed the whole world.
He really did.
Like the way we look at numbers now is the Arabic number set,
and just I would love to talk to him just about conquering it,
and just how to conquer, how to have that mindset.
If I were a superhero, my superpower
would be stopping time, because man, I don't have enough time.
I don't have enough time for anything.
I feel like I'm always on the run,
feel like I always have somewhere to be.
If I could just give myself about an hour or two a day
where the world just stopped, and I could do whatever.
I can lift weights, I can go and run, I can go and read.
I can do whatever I need to do for those two hours.
I would love to have that superpower.
Inappropriate things make me laugh.
We just lost a great comedian last week, Norm MacDonald.
Man, he's so inappropriate.
He was so inappropriate, and it's so funny,
and it's cringeworthy.
I have one friend and one family member.
My friend Phonte from the group Little Brother
and from Foreign Exchange, he says
the most inappropriate things.
He wouldn't say it in public, but to me he does.
And it's so damn funny.
And I have another cousin named Ted Lee.
You know what?
I can't really bring him around people, because he's going
to make everybody's skin crawl.
But man, the stuff that he says is the funniest stuff
in the world.
He was actually my piano double for "Aretha."
Yeah, everybody was just taken aback by some of the things
he said, but it's funny to me.
Well the lesson I take away from the show is family.
Family is the most important thing.
It truly is more than anything else, more than money,
more than a job, more than anything.
Family.
The people who are the blood of your blood,
or people who you choose to make your family.
You know you have to make sure that you take care of them,
that you listen to them.
That relationship is just extremely important.
And we all need that.
And that's the main thing I take away from "Queen Sugar."
My favorite scene from this season
is a scene that I had no lines in.
It was a scene where Hollywood was just
going through his mother's things, right?
He was going through, he was looking at these pictures,
and he was looking at all this stuff.
This is right after Vi tells Hollywood,
like man, you know what?
You really need to go through your mother's stuff.
The stuff is just here.
You need to confront all these emotions,
and you need to figure it out.
And I put on this red hat, and you know,
it was just so beautiful because it was no lines.
It was just strictly Hollywood is going through these things.
He's reminiscing.
And it's just a beautiful scene.
I watched it.
It was tremendous, man.
If you get a chance to watch it again, watch it, because as I
said, there's no dialogue.
It's just straight up and down.
Just a man who was dealing with what he's dealing with--
the loss of his mother--
and just trying to come to grips with everything.
And he's having these amazing reminiscing thoughts about what
the woman was to him.
For a day of filming, you know, I
just had to have my lines together
and have a good night of sleep.
I have to prepare lines, prepare and make
sure I have everything done.
I don't want to ever come to set when somebody is waiting on me.
I hate that.
So if I don't have my lines together,
or if I'm stumbling over lines, I
don't want to be the person to make everybody late
or to be an impediment to what we're trying to do.
I want to be a person who's like Omar's here, Omar's ready.
And everybody on the crew sort of
knows that when Omar and Tina come,
that you know it's gonna be a good day,
because we're so prepared.
I would definitely be friends with Hollywood.
Hollywood is like the guys who I hang out with anyway.
But he has this wisdom about him,
he has this love about him, you know.
He has this thing.
I think if you become Hollywood's friend,
you're his friend for life.
I mean unless you cross him or you do something wrong to him,
you know, he's gonna always be the one to--
even if you made a mistake-- he'll tell you,
I'm not gonna bury you.
I'm not gonna throw you away.
You're my friend you're my family.
The only thing I would do about Hollywood,
I'd try to teach him how to dress
a little bit better because, you know, he real country.
New Orleans is a special place, it's a special place.
I've been everywhere around this world.
New Orleans is such a specific and particular city.
The history there, everything from Congo Square--
it's the first place that slaves were able to practice
their native religion.
You know, that's why Santeria and all those African religions
are so heavy in New Orleans, because they
were able to practice it, and it wasn't forgotten.
New Orleans is just such a unique place to be.
I love the people there.
I love the food there.
I love the culture there.
I love everything about that city
except when they play the Falcons two days out the year.
If I had a chance to switch roles with anybody,
it'd probably be Nick Ash, who plays Micah.
The growth of that role from the first episode
to where he is this season, it's a beautiful thing, because you
know, we all have been kids, went to the high school,
and then we go to college, and all of these different things
that we learn, you know.
All these different routes that we could take in life.
It's beautiful.
When I watch the show, honestly I watch the show,
watching what Micah's gonna do.
And when I read the scripts, I'm like, well,
what was Micah doing this week?
Or what is he doing on this episode?
What's going on in this episode?
Because I've been the 18, 17, 16, 15-year-old kid,
and watching the decisions that he makes is beautiful,
and it's just reminiscent of my childhood.
And you know, just to get the freedom and the growth.
There's something about being young,
that you're not set in your ways.
You're trying to find your way.
Everybody else is an adult you know, except for Ethan
of course, who plays Blue.
But there's something very pivotal
about those early adult years.
And I just I love that character so much.
The day I found out I was cast on "Queen Sugar,"
I was in the Bahamas.
I was doing this film called "Cargo."
And Ava calls me.
Said, what you doing, Big O?
I'm chilling. You know.
I'm on break.
I want you to read this script.
I want you to tell me what you think about it.
I read the script.
I said, this is amazing.
She's like, Yes, it's a new show I'm doing on OWN.
But I remember she told me about it probably a year before.
And I said, Ava, this is going to be a hit.
And she said well I really want you to do it.
I said OK cool just let me know.
I'm in Bahamas right now.
I can't come in for an audition.
And she was like, no.
I told you I want you to do it.
It's my show.
It's me and Oprah's show, and we both want you to do it.
And I wrote this for you.
And I was dumbfounded.
I'd never had anybody tell me anything like that in my life.
That I wrote a role for you and you
don't have to audition for it, which
is really new to an actor.
You know I didn't have any name.
I wasn't anybody.
I wasn't famous.
So I was just head over heels.
She was like, if you want to do it, let me know.
And she told me which role it was,
and I said I really love that role a lot.
I love everything about the Hollywood character.
It's something totally different than I've ever done.
But it's something that's really close to me,
and it's something I know I can play.
Because it's basically who I feel like I can be,
it's the man I want to be.
So she's like, well we're gonna call your people,
and let's get it done.
So I remember that day like it was yesterday.
It was in November, and I was shooting
a movie in the Bahamas.
So it was tremendous.
To be working alongside a Black cast and crew is awesome.
I haven't had that in a long time.
I think the last time that I really had it,
it was "Selma," actually.
You know, it's Ava, man.
You know she wants to put the best people that she knows,
and she wants to give people of color and women an opportunity,
because we can do it.
Just the doors have been closed for so long for us,
but to be able to be in a cast and having the crew.
You know, we all have shared experiences,
and we all laugh at the same jokes.
It feels like home.
Actually that's exactly what it feels like.
It feels like I'm in Decatur, Georgia, at Avondale
High School.
When I was a kid growing up, what I wanted to be
was an actor.
My mother was a theater director.
I remember the first time I went to a rehearsal with her.
I might have been two or three years old.
And I saw these people on stage, and I said Mama,
this is what I want to do when I grow up.
And she trained me.
My mother, Doctor Naomi Dorsey, trained me from that moment,
and she still trains me now.
I run lines with her right now.
She's an amazing woman.
She's an angel.
She's the greatest person I've ever met in my life.
And that's exactly what I wanted to be when I grew
up, because she nurtured that.
In the last year I learned that I could be--
this is gonna sound crazy.
I'm 45 years old, right?--
I realized that I could be an adult. I lost my brother.
He was the man, you know.
He took care of a lot of stuff in our family.
And when I lost him-- to cancer last year in January--
I told him on his deathbed, I said, Oliver, I got it, man.
I got it.
And from that moment on, man, I put that on my shoulders,
and I've done what I needed to do for my family,
for my children, my parents.
You know I put that on my shoulders, and you know,
it is what it is.
And I'm doing everything I can, and I am really adulting at 45
years old for the first time.
You know the one area of my life I'm
trying to own wholeheartedly is being the best
father that I could be.
I think I'm a great father.
I want to be the best that can be.
I love my daughters with all my heart.
I'd do anything for them.
And I just want to be there, just listen to them,
and try to give them guidance.
And I do that, but giving them guidance without trying
to sound like daddy, without sounding like a sage,
sounding like Yoda, you know.
Without being self-serving, you know,
I want you to do it like this because that
doesn't make me feel good.
I want you know my daughters to grow--
which they really have.
I have two amazing daughters, and they're young ladies.
You know one just graduated from Howard.
The other one's going to Spelman next year.
It's just tremendous to see what they have become
over the last 17 and 22 years.
And I just want to be there.
I just want to continue to be the best
version of what I could be.
To be not daddy, like, Do this, do that.
Do this, do that.
And just ask them questions.
Just ask them questions about what's the why on why
you're deciding to do this, you know,
and listen to what they say.
Make sure you watch "Queen Sugar" on OWN, Tuesdays, 8:00
PM.