Omari Hardwick on starring in scary thriller ‘Spell’: ‘I’m not used to being alone that long’

'Spell', starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine, debuts October 30.

Oct 29, 2020

Omari Hardwick has had us under his SPELL for a while, but the actor is showing off a whole other side of his talent in the psychological thriller that debuts just in time to scare you senseless for Halloween.

The Power alum stars in the flick alongside Loretta Devine and in it, he’s fighting for his life and his family.

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Here’s the official description:

While flying to his father’s funeral in rural Appalachia, an intense storm causes Marquis to lose control of the plane carrying himself and his family. He soon awakens wounded, alone and trapped in Ms. Eloise’s attic. Eloise claims she can nurse him back to health with a hoodoo figure she’s made from his blood and skin. Unable to call for help, Marquis desperately tries to break free from her dark magic and save his family from a sinister ritual before the rise of the blood moon.

Omari Hardwick thegrio.com — (Credit: Getty Images)

theGrio caught up with Hardwick to find out how he handled jumping into the genre that has long been light on the melanin.

“I’ve always wanted to be in a psychological thriller. Horror has been offered at times and I’ve sort of evaded it. I guess just because the scripts that I’ve read involving horror seems like I’m just running and, you know, prior to Jordan Peele coming to that world, we didn’t necessarily run for long, if you catch my drift,” he says.

“I mean, you know, we can joke about it, but it’s kind of true in terms of horror that you and I grew up watching. So I definitely wanted to be a part of a psychological thriller. I thought that I was highly affected by ‘The Shining’ growing up. I thought that I was forever affected by the cool killing machine called Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins and how Jodie Foster navigated that and what that meant and those were moments for me where I didn’t think I’d ever be acting. So it’s interesting to name those movies now because they must have affected me enough where I can pull enough from them when having come to this genre for the first time, which absolutely the word “horror” should be inclusive in it.”

While he shared several moments with the film’s antagonist, there’s also lots of times in the film when he’s all alone. According to Hardwick, starring in so many scenes solo isn’t as easy as it looks.

“I’m not used to being alone that long. I definitely felt all a sudden another level of respect for Will Smith, having been in ‘I Am Legend,’ you know, which was absolutely similar in many ways. People haven’t compared this to that as much but I definitely feel certain remnants of it. So there was that moment where I thought, I guess I know what I’m doing because a studio can’t hire you to be alone for that long unless you kind of can hold the frame.”

Check out the full interview above.

Spell premieres on VOD on October 30.

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