A biography for Omari Hardwickhasn’t been written yet.
“I realized, 'Oh, it's easier to get what I want if I embrace the sex symbol thing.' Microphones are more in my face, and I can say things about the kids that I mentor and open more access to more doors.”
“That's the thing with me being a former athlete: in the way I attack characters and attack poetry is from the base of being an athlete.”
“I really had a problem with being 'the man.' I'm past it now, but that was my insecurity. I ran from that. I was cool with being No. 3 on the call sheet or No. 2.”
“It's really rare to come across a character, a show, or a movie that allows you to completely play four or five different characters within a season, let alone a week.”
“I was trying to pay the bills with poems, and it was easy to memorize my poems, because I'd be riding my bike in California trying to memorize them before going on stage at a poetry lounge.”
“Actors are intelligent. Yet, many of them do not communicate well. That's what makes it so hard to have a relationship with one.”
“I was a 200-pound defensive back on Saturday, but after the season, I was performing 'Lysistrata' or 'Fences.'”
“Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.”
“To make your own family is just the most empowering thing ever. It's the greatest thing you can ever pull off.”
“I'd done 'Peter Pan' in a little pre-K class or whatever.”
“I was going from Furman to the University of Georgia. I transferred to play football.”
“If I can just be thought of as Omari Hardwick who had a really, really solid career, and whose work is appreciated in its own right, I think that would be a great legacy to leave behind.”
“I'm safe where I'm at just being the guy where people go, 'That's a really good actor. What's his name again?' I liked being at that place.”
“When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.”
“You can't look at the dollar and say, 'I'm not what I dreamed of being unless I do this type of movie and it's a blockbuster that gives me this amount of dollars.' That's not good.”
“I did 'Fences' off-broadway at the Beacon Theater, so it's amazing that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis brought it to Broadway.”
“Acting is the art of being and existing, and not being fake.”
“I think what's most important is family.”
“I've approached every character I've ever played with a poem, first and foremost.”
“For a long time, I had been very secretive about a lot of the things I'd been through personally, and a lot of that is purposeful. My fan base, for the large part, is the younger generation. They're like, 'I want to know everything! I want to know it all!'”