(upbeat music)
- Hi, this is Marya Gullo from the Hollywood Reporter
and I'm in studio today with Omari Hardwick.
Hi, Omari.
- Hey.
- How are you?
- Hi folks, how you doing?
I'm good.
I appreciate you having me. - Omari, is a star of Power.
I'm so excited to talk to you.
- Thank you, thanks for having me.
- Because here comes season--
- [In Unison] five.
- Which they say that you've figured out
something if you got five seasons of a show, right?
- Absolutely.
- We're onto something, so it's pretty cool.
- Absolutely.
And last season, we left off at a cliffhanger.
- Mm-hmm, I think it's safe to say
we always leave off--
- (laughs) Maybe every episode actually.
- Yeah, that's true too. (laughing)
I think the writer's room, obviously headed
by our show's runner and creator, Courtney Kemp,
we figured out that which Curtis, being 50 Cent,
our exec producer as well, we figured out
what his mantra had always been for the show,
which was pace, pace, pace.
- [Marya] Mm, yeah.
And so, you can earn the cliffhanger moments,
you know, towards the end of, as you said,
per episode, but more so and more specifically,
at the end of each season you can earn those
if you've paced throughout the duration of ten episodes.
Eight the first season and then 10,
you know, second to the fifth season now,
which will soon come.
- Yeah, so we've got some new themes coming up.
- Yeah, we do.
- We have a new alliance.
- Well, yeah, we have, and still thematically, we have...
we have an incarcerated individual,
even though he is physically out of prison
at this point, if that makes sense.
You know what I mean?
- Right.
- He's still figuratively, sorta,
because once you're locked up
and the person that you know is responsible
for locking you up, that being Ghost's mistress
and Angela, played by Lela Loren,
at that point, even though she aided him
in getting out, there's still a major level
of trust issues that he's dealing with.
He feels like he's being haunted
by a bunch of ghosts, pun intended.
Ghost can't figure out which ghost
he needs to look out for the most,
so I think he still feels quite incarcerated
and like he's sleeping with one and a half eye open,
you know, trying to figure out who done it,
or who's trying to bring him down.
And so as you said, we now are at this place of flush out.
So, season five is definitely about flushing out
the different triumvirates, the different alliances
and whose loyalty is not to be trusted.
- Yeah, it seems like at the end of the season
the kind of the big loser in this is Tasha.
Is she gonna be alright?
(laughing)
- Kinda feel like a episode of Big Loser.
(laughing)
Nah, I don't necessarily think she's the big loser.
Why would you say such a thing?
- I'm just worried about her.
I'm concerned that she's about to take the fall.
- No, no, you can't be worried about that.
(laughing)
Because first and foremost, she's the mother of,
not only of Ghost's kids, and obviously we know
the other big cliffhanger was that they both
together lost their daughter, obviously,
and we're still trying to figure out
in season five we'll reveal that,
you know, who's responsible for that.
Who's to be blamed.
Ghost, with his level of narcissism,
which has increased over the five years of the show,
I think it's what the fans have enjoyed the most
is that he's still a humble man,
who, when I say humble,
obviously there's quotations around it,
but he still has a heart for family
and for doing right or breaking good from bad,
right, what have you, but at the end of the day
or the beginning of Sunday,
this is a guy that is still narcissistic enough
that even if he goes to sleep at night
feeling the blame for the death of his daughter,
he's definitely deflecting it on everybody else.
He's definitely not wanting to put it on himself,
so she's the big loser in that way.
He's had an affair for the duration
of the show at this point.
She obviously has stepped out as well,
so there's been hurt back and forth.
It's been reciprocated, but she's still
the mother of this family.
She's definitely, and I think Naturi does a great job,
Naturi Naughton that is, of playing it
where she is making sure the fans pay attention
to the fact that she's a doting mother
and that she definitely is about her family
remaining a unit, but she's also the Clyde,
or the Bonnie, excuse me, to his Clyde.
She knows where to hide the gun.
She knows where to hide the drugs.
She'd rather him remain a drug dealer,
while he wants to dream and do entrepreneur endeavors
and be this different kind of guy.
So, I wouldn't worry about her as much
because they're all broken characters.
So if I were you, or if I were you, the fan,
I would say to sort of worry about all of us.
(laughing)
- Yeah.
- I mean, the jury is out as to who's
gonna get it the quickest.
(laughing) - Yeah.
- You know, Curtis and Courtney set up this beautiful show
where by season one, Ghost could have been got.
Ghost could have died by season one,
and he's the title of the lead character.
All of us can go down, and Ghost needs timing
more than ever this season, and he needs Kanan,
who he tried to take off the earth at one point.
- I just see that alliance falling apart by episode four.
(laughing)
- Really?
- I just don't think that those three guys
should be in the same room together for too long.
- If they can take a deep breath.
(laughing)
My mother, when I would get out of sorts,
she used to tell me as a kid,
"Omari, count to 10."
(speaks in foreign language)
Like, if they can figure that out,
then you know, and remember what the inception
of their relationship, remember what existed
between the three of them, which was love.
I always tell Joseph Sikora, playing Tommy,
as an actor, as Omari talking to Joseph,
I always say, "it's about the love, remember the love."
So, if the three of them can remember
that at one point they liked each other,
which like is a very underrated word.
It doesn't even have to be about the love,
but that you actually dug each other,
then maybe they can be of alliance beyond four episodes.
- Right. (laughs)
- Damn, you ain't even give us a half the season.
(laughing)
Not even five episodes?
- Speaking of Tommy, now we know
he comes from Italian blood, are we gonna see some
wise guys this season?
- (laughs) I think we are.
We know that he, as you said, comes from
that contingency where we thought that he was
just of Irish-American blood, and as we know historically,
and I think again, Courtney has done such a great job
of setting up the present modern spectrum
of that which I've always felt like was Shakespeare
and its backdrop, our show is very Shakespearean to me.
And many shows are, but particularly ours.
I think she's done a great job of allowing people
that have enough precocious nature
to go back and think about the history of New York
since it plays such a paramount character
within the show, as a city.
So, if you go back into the history,
the mob was equally as potent as it pertained
to the Irish mob as it was in terms of the Italian mob
and the development of what we've known
New York crime to be.
And so he's already got that side,
you know, the Hell's Kitchen, Irish-clad mobster
reality of how they navigated New York,
and now that we know he's got, as you said,
the mobster side of Italian blood,
we definitely will see his father,
who we ended the season learning was his father.
So, we'll definitely see him.
The incredible William Sadler,
who of course played his father
and Ghost learns in jail that's his father,
but not yet telling Tommy that he's
learned that he's his father.
I don't know how many wise guys we'll see
without giving too much away,
but we'll definitely see that relationship
be of something, Tommy and his now father
that he's never had before.
- Are you a fan of gangster movies?
- Oh, come on, who's not?
- Alright, I got a gangster movie quiz for you.
- Shoot.
- Alright, I'm gonna tell you the name of the movie,
and you tell me the city the movie takes place in.
- Ooh, wow, that's hard.
- The Untouchables.
- Eliot Ness, that's Chicago.
- Yep. - Yeah.
- Mean Streets. - New York.
- The Departed.
- Boston.
- Yep, Mi Vida Loca.
(laughing)
- Yeah? (laughing)
I don't know.
- It's about a female Chicano gang.
- I didn't know that, I've never seen that.
- It's L.A., you should check it out.
It's a good '90s indie movie. - I was gonna say L.A. 'cause
obviously you--
- I threw you a ringer there.
- No, it was Spanish decent, so I was gonna imagine that
or Mexico, but it's, well Mexico is L.A. right?
Or vice versa.
- It's the same.
- There you have it. (laughing)
- Scarface.
- Miami. - Yep.
- Bugsy.
- Bugsy Siegel, New York.
- Mmm.
- No?
Bugsy Siegel, not New York?
Chicago?
Where?
- Las Vegas.
- Ah, yeah.
- He founded Las Vegas, but I'm sure there
are a lot of scenes in New York.
- Yeah, he did fine, okay.
He was the guy, right?
- Yeah.
Bugsy Siegel is the guy.
- Yeah.
Alright, so a couple more questions before I let you go.
- Okay, I'm here, I'm here however long you guys need me.
- Oh, awesome.
Okay, well then let's settle in.
- You know.
- What's more fun for you to film,
torture scenes, scenes where you're torturing somebody,
or scenes where, your love scenes?
- That's a great question.
Sometimes the love scenes are of torture, right?
(laughing)
I would say the torture scenes are definitely more fun.
It's never easy to do a love scene.
Contrary--
- It's vulnerable.
- Yeah, not just that, it's awkward.
- Yeah.
- Vulnerability is fine, you know.
I think I definitely have the button that allows
for the vulnerability to come out
and whatever I've been able to do,
I don't think that's my issue, but it's just awkward.
You know, they say closed set, right?
You see that on the call sheet,
like okay we got a closed set.
Sometimes you see that phrase prior
to even knowing that you have a love scene,
but you see closed set, and you go,
"I must have a love scene coming up."
And then you get your sides,
but it's never necessarily a closed set.
- No, it can't ever be too closed.
- It's a bunch of closed mouths
because nobody wants to be the first person
to expel any air.
(laughing)
But it's not a closed set.
(laughing)
They're not very comfy.
- Yeah.
We have all of television kinda pushing
towards more diverse casting in series,
but what's the next step?
- That's a great question.
You did good girl.
(laughing)
That's awesome.
I think we have to continue with, I think it's a
the divide between the genders
is to me the next step
and then that, if being 1A, then 1B would be,
you know, and what I mean by that,
the next step or the divide between the gender,
what I mean by that is more female directors.
More female producers.
More execs at studios that happen to be female.
And then, if that's 1A, 'cause I think it always starts with
I don't think God sat there and did the color thing,
and I happen to believe in God,
I think that he did the gender thing,
so it starts with that to me.
You know, you have to allow women a level of power
that they haven't been able to have, but yet they possess
often at levels that we as men would be enviable of
if we saw how well women could pull off
what I know that they can pull off,
and so that would be first and foremost.
And if that's 1A, I think 1B would be allowing
for the minority within this industry,
and again, specified off into America
and Americans being a part of this film
'cause I happen to be American,
that brown people have a shot better.
That was Kaepernick's whole point, you know.
He wasn't trying to curse or defame the flag,
he was saying it should be more.
The 50 stars on it should represent something
that represents myself as a brown person.
That's all he was doing.
He was actually rooting for it to be better,
for it to be its best.
And so, if that's taking a knee, I would do the same thing
as it pertains to my industry that I call home
and that I put food on the table being a part of.
Allowing for the flag of what we've been,
to have stars on it that look like women.
To have stars on it that look like brown people.
I think those are the obvious next steps
continue keeping that train moving,
it's not enough to just go, "hey we did it, see?
"We're good, let's not converse about it anymore."
We gotta keep the action going.
- Right, So, Hollywood, you're on notice.
The future is female.
- Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- You heard it from this guy.
- The future is female.
I mean, the world has always been female.
We don't come out of the stomachs of men.
- Not yet. (laughing)
- Not yet?
Girl, what science you been studying?
- Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
- Yeah, that's true. (laughing)
- Well, Omari--
- It's not a tumor.
(laughing)
- Exactly.
- We love you, Arnold. - We do.
Omari, thank you so much for coming by.
- Thank you, thank you for having me.
- Good luck with season five of Power.
- I appreciate it, thank you so much.
And thank you fans, peace.