{"id":72147,"date":"2015-06-02T13:19:44","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T13:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/0de2709a84.nxcli.net\/0-kjasnb\/2015\/06\/02\/omari-hardwick-and-lela-loren-talk-powers-season-2\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T03:45:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T03:45:01","slug":"omari-hardwick-and-lela-loren-talk-powers-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackfilm.com\/read\/omari-hardwick-and-lela-loren-talk-powers-season-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Omari Hardwick and Lela Loren Talk Power’s Season 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Omari Hardwick and Lela Loren Talks Power’s Season 2<\/strong>by Brad Balfour<\/p>\n

June 2, 2015<\/p>\n

\"Power<\/a><\/p>\n

As they came into the room, actors Omari Hardwick <\/strong>and Lela Loren <\/strong>demonstrate that they are clearly extroverts who make an expressive power couple both on and off screen. We may not know how they relate to each other off-screen at their more intimate moments but, in their intimate on-screen moments \u2014 in the second season of Power, the hit Starz series created by 50 Cent and Courtney Kemp Agboh\u2014 they display incredible passion.<\/p>\n

They are the couple at risk. He\u2019s the popular club owner and, behind the scenes, a drug baron, and she\u2019s his original high school flame rediscovered, who outwardly challenges his marriage with their hot and heavy affair and challenges his life, covertly as an undercover FBI agent out to destroy his drug cartel.<\/p>\n

Former college athletic star Hardwick had a passion for the arts that he carried him throughout school, writing poetry and studying acting. Once an injury doomed a pro football career, he fully explored acting landing parts in television and film, and ultimately Power\u2019s lead, James \u201cGhost\u201d St. Patrick.<\/p>\n

\"Lela<\/a><\/p>\n

Born as Lela Maria Loren Avellaneda Sharp, beautiful actress Loren first established herself in roles on television (Gang Related<\/strong>) and by being in such high-profile films as The Hangover Part III <\/strong>(2013), Snitch<\/strong> (2013) and Reign Over Me <\/strong>(2007). But in Power<\/strong>, she\u2019s Angela Valdes, whose searing hot scenes with Ghost contrast with her other life as a hard-charging undercover agent out to bring down the drug dealing empire he helps run.<\/p>\n

Sadly they only joined our roundtable of journalists all too briefly in handling a day of interviews in advance of the premiere of this series. Here\u2019s is the dialogue that followed at New York\u2019s Park Hyatt Hotel.<\/p>\n

If the series wasn\u2019t called \u201cPower,\u201dwhat name would you name the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lela Loren: <\/strong>\u201cPlay Pussy, Get Fucked\u201d [laughs].<\/p>\n

Omari Hardwick:<\/strong> What did she even say?<\/p>\n

You want me to repeat it? Play pussy, get fucked.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Power<\/a><\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> Wow. This one\u2019s got some surprises.<\/p>\n

Wow, how are you going to beat that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> I can\u2019t beat that. If it wasn\u2019t called \u201cPower\u201d, I would say, oh, man, I would say, \u201cStrangers and Lovers\u201d\u2026 Yeah, \u201cStrangers and Lovers.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you walk the fine line between–<\/strong><\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> Strangers and lovers? [Laughs.]\n

Yeah, \u201cStrangers and Lovers\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s not a bad point, but the fine line between evil and tragedy, or destruction, is it in this title? How do you negotiate it in your own mind, as the character and as the actor playing this character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"PWS2_202_100114_0149.jpg\"OH:<\/strong> I would say just the — a long time ago, the innate, and all-embracing — which I guess all people that are born to be artists, whether you think you\u2019re going to be an artist or not. I\u2019m looking at Lela, she\u2019ll let you know why. We are born as artists, right? And I think that there\u2019s an innate embracing of the fact that, there\u2019s good and bad that lives in all of us, so, naturally, I would say the genesis of it for me is that I truly believe in that. I am a kid who was the middle boy and often I would hear, \u201cWhere\u2019s Omari?\u201d as much as I heard, \u201cWhere\u2019s Waldo?\u201d<\/p>\n

I heard, \u201cWhere\u2019s Omari?\u201d So, maybe, Omari\u2019s constantly asking, \u201cWhere\u2019s Omari?\u201d \u201cWhich Omari is Omari?\u201d I try to be as cool and collected and as gathered as the athlete in me forces me to be, but those who love and know me also know that there\u2019s a lot of weird oddities and idiosyncrasies and intense power to Omari, so I negotiate it by really just embracing me. I have to confidently cool with O to play somebody like Ghost.<\/p>\n

\"Power<\/a><\/p>\n

And for yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> I think especially for us females, we have a thousand women inside of us, and\u2026<\/p>\n

OH: <\/strong>Not all of y\u2019all.<\/p>\n

LL: <\/strong>[Laughs] And we are tortured by each one in turn. I always look at characters almost like with painting a picture, and we use the palette that is sort of inside of us. There\u2019s this wonderful term in the Spanish language, this Spanish concept called duende, which [the legendary Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director] Federico Garcia Lorca talked about it. It\u2019s this idea of — there\u2019s sort of the golden muse, the light colors \u2014 and the duende is the opposite. It\u2019s the blood and guts, it\u2019s the thing that comes up from the soles of your feet and chokes you on the way out. And you know, a lot of these characters have that.<\/p>\n

\"Lela<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the thing that you find in blues music and flamenco guitar, that kind of gets deep inside and there\u2019s a pain in it and a sadness. But then it\u2019s a vital life force as well. And I think you give yourself over to it and you trust that feelings don\u2019t kill you, you just surf them and you ride them.<\/p>\n

So when you play these dark characters, and you also find the light parts and the parts where they\u2019re goofy and girlish and selfish and manipulative; it\u2019s fun as an artist [to do] because we really are like, exploring the human condition.<\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> We get to be kinder with you guys and with the fans.<\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> And when you have great writing [like there is here], you\u2019ve just got more avenues.<\/p>\n

Courtney Kemp has sort of said that season two is the season of Kanan, how does that affect you guys\u2019 characters, that statement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"PWS2_202_100114_0149.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> Well, I would say that subliminally it affects Lela\u2019s characters in a sense that Angela is trying her hardest to figure out and crack this case, that at the pinnacle of the treachery lies Ghost, who she thinks is Jamie. And so there is no Ghost without Kanan, and so she\u2019s equally affected by Kanan in that way. I would say directly with me, he\u2019s every bit of what I knew I could become and more.<\/p>\n

So now that he\u2019s back, there\u2019s a battle of egos, you know? Mine obviously being larger. There can never be an ego larger than someone that knows that they can outsmart the next person. Intelligence is the most dangerous thing on this planet, and so Ghost is very, very bright in ways that Kanan is limited. But Kanan is full of ferocity and he\u2019s into like, \u201cWell I\u2019ll destroy you, and you can\u2019t think that much if you don\u2019t have a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PWS2_201_092514_0278.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you have any thoughts on that as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> In terms of Kanan? I\u2019m as excited as every other viewer to see his storyline because he\u2019s such a–my character doesn\u2019t even know of his existence, right? Because our worlds are so separate. You know, it is the season of Kanan, but Angela is still ignorant as to\u2026<\/p>\n

OH: <\/strong>And she aptly named these characters, she very much took on like [author John] Steinbeck did, you know, with how he named characters, like Hester Prynne and Chillingsworth, the character\u2019s name\u2019s Chillingsworth. And Courtney\u2019s just, you know, another intelligent human being, and you make Angela Angela because she\u2019s an angel, or at least Ghost\u2019s angel, And you make Kanan–she literally got it from Cain and Abel. The Canaanites, that\u2019s where she [took it from].<\/p>\n

\"PWS2_202_100114_0149.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How hands-on is [50 Cent] and what is he like to work with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> Pretty hands-on. And for me as a friend, pretty unbelievably hands-on. We\u2019re extremely close and constantly–I\u2019m never not texting him or calling him because I\u2019m playing a character loosely based on his life, so he\u2019s got to be close to me. He also said if we can\u2019t have this show without Omari, don\u2019t do it, so that\u2019s one of the greatest compliments ever. He kept saying, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had watched me in Next Day Air. And I always try to bring a duality to characters, but Courtney has obviously graduated my opportunity to do so with the writing, but he was like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get the right guy to do this,\u201d so originally he was going to do this in less or minus the time that he obviously didn\u2019t have, he\u2019s always juggling. They wanted somebody else to play it. So he\u2019s very hands-on. I guess you don\u2019t get to see him as much.<\/p>\n

\"PWS2_202_100114_0149.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> [No], because he\u2019s not in my world. So it\u2019s like, he\u2019ll come by and watch a scene, and he\u2019ll give you a big hug and a smile and root you on and it feels really good. For me, he\u2019s like a mama bear, rooting you on in the corner.<\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> He\u2019s a big teddy bear.<\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> Which is surprising when you think, because there\u2019s a piece of you that expects — you know, when you\u2019re that much of an alpha male, you don\u2019t need to walk in with the [attitude] \u2014 you can be the sweetest, kindest person on the planet, which is interesting.<\/p>\n

How does it feel to play the role of a female with so much power in an office full of men?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Lela<\/a>LL:<\/strong> Oh, god. That\u2019s a great question.<\/p>\n

OH: <\/strong>There aren\u2019t a lot of women in your world.<\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> There\u2019s isn\u2019t a lot of women in my world. You know what\u2019s so funny, is that has been a large part of my life so I haven\u2019t even thought about it. Like when I was in high school I was on an all-boys crew team. Yeah, I went to an all-girls high school and on an all-boys crew team. I helped pay for college by doing commercial fishing in Alaska. I was the only girl. And so I\u2019ve always felt like Wendy in a sea of lost boys.<\/p>\n

\"Omari<\/a>But I do say the office environment has always been more antagonistic than in my real-life environment. I\u2019ve always found men to be incredible allies, particularly with their perspective. Like, we use women like, to get into our [drama] — and a guy\u2019s perspective can just like, cut through all of that and we\u2019re like, \u201cDamn, he\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n

OH:<\/strong> I\u2019ll be cutting through that stuff [laughs].<\/p>\n

LL:<\/strong> But I think it\u2019s something for Angela to push off of, and you get to see her sort of femininity on display because it\u2019s a counterpoint to all of the masculinity that\u2019s around her.<\/p>\n

Season 2 trailer<\/strong><\/p>\n