Power actor Omari Hardwick has joined the Halle Berry-led Netflix science fiction drama The Mothership.
Deadline recently reported that Hardwick signed on to the drama that will feature Oscar award-winning actress Berry playing Sara Mose, a woman who has to navigate her life following the disappearance of her husband from their farmland the previous year. She soon discovers an extraterrestrial object under her home. Sara and her children race against time to find out just what the link is between this object and the disappearance of the head of their family.
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It is not yet clear what role Hardwick will assume in a cast that also boasts John Ortiz and Molly Parker. Berry and Danny Stillman will serve as the executive producer of the sci-fi drama for Netflix and MRC Film. Oscar-nominated Bridge of Spies screenwriter Matthew Charman, who wrote the script, will be at the helm as the director.
Hardwick has not yet commented on his new role but is no stranger to roles that stray from the norm. He can currently be seen in Zach Snyder’s Netflix zombie drama Army of the Dead as Vanderohe. He explained to Collider what went through his mind as he filmed his character being bit.
“But by the end of the movie, I think where I was at mentally was, ‘Wow, this is funny, the parody.’ Of course you see him laughing, because looking at the mirror at himself it’s beautiful that it was set up for me to have to really dissect myself. ‘Mirror mirror on the wall, who is really the most confused of them all?’” Hardwick told the outlet.
In prepping for the Vanderohe role, Hardwick knew he had to put into practice what the character philosophized about.
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“At this point, it’s this guy who thought perhaps he had some things figured out. As much as he knew going in, he still has some things left to figure out. He’s looking at the end at himself like, ‘Wow, okay, so any of the philosophies that I threw out, do they now work? Do they save me or are they just that?’” the actor said.
“And so I think we leave my face in the form of a question mark, and I think that’s where I tried to play it, this space of being interrogative and not a period.”
Hardwick also wanted the audience to decide for themselves what happened next.
“I didn’t want to be declarative, I wanted to be a question mark at the end. If my face could be compared to anything of exclamation, it was that of a question mark.”
As for the role that he’s most fondly remembered for — James St. Patrick on Power — Hardwick told Fat Joe earlier this month that he almost passed on his signature character.
“I feared it for many a reason, you know,” Hardwick said on The Fat Joe Show.
Hardwick was apprehensive about putting a franchise on his shoulders, but ultimately believed he could.
“I think I was comfortable with people going, ‘yo that kid Omari really, that n—a be stealing scenes,’ and I was never that guy ever trying to steal scenes, I was so used to athletics and being a part of a team, but I guess whatever my gift was I dealt with a bad insecurity of pushing that gift way down,” he said.
“ … And so as it pertains to being ‘the guy’ in the space of being the lead actor, I feel like I pushed, and pushed, and pushed.”
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