Omari Hardwick

“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.”

“I don't think there's a fan out there who hasn't had a family member or known someone personally who's been in the midst of divorce - perhaps not necessarily gotten the divorce or executed it, or perhaps they have - and still, in many cases, they found themselves back with the person that they were married to.”

“I think Gil Scott-Heron is a king. He's a brilliant, broken king.”

“A powerful person is equally cool with their flaws and things that aren't powerful about them at all.”

“I'm always like, 'Well, let's not rest on a critical acclaim or on a incredible review or on a great reception.'”

“'Power' is a funny thing. Maybe it's a show that draws people in because they are watching people do things they secretly wish they could do or know they could get away with.”

“Women are so necessary for us in terms of support.”

“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 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'm really nerdy, and I read a lot.”

“I think I'm an athlete who's trained as an actor, and when you smash it all together, you get whatever Omari is doing as a performer right now.”

“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.”

“I always go into a character thinking, 'If it scares me, I can do it.'”

“Like anybody who grew up in the Eighties, I cringe at the thought of these movies being remade, because of the corniness and cheesiness of the originals.”

“It's rare for artists to really stare deeply at themselves in the mirror, literally, because there's constantly a mirror on you.”

“You don't go to church and tell the choir how to sing if you're a visitor.”

“I grew up in a two-parent household. We all played sports, all sports, which cost a lot of money. My pops was an attorney; he went to College of the Holy Cross with Clarence Thomas. My mom worked a bit, then gradually came home and took care of us full time.”

“Sometimes my schedule doesn't allow time to go to the hotel after I get off the plane, so I bring my Freebird boots or my old school Adidas shell-toes to throw on after I land.”

“I always have a backpack. I was a poet, so it reminds me of being a backpack poet.”

“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.”