‘Empire’ actor to make film stars out of local thespians

When Netflix, American media-services provider headquartered in Los Gatos, California, launched its operations in Africa in 2016, it was hoped that it would create a platform for Africa to showcase its productions to the world.

Netflix’s primary business is its subscription-based streaming over-the-top service which offers an online menu of films and television programmes.

Currently, Nigeria enjoys the lion’s share of series and movies whose rights have been bought by the on-demand distributors. More than 27 shows from Africa’s most populated country have been on Netflix’s list of contents at one time or another. There is yet to be a Kenyan production to assuage this growing international hunger for African stories, which shows that we still have a long way to go, if this is to be used as a benchmark.

Omari Morocco, an actor who plays Tariq Cousins in the popular hip hop television drama series “Empire” had two days with budding and established actors, producers and students of the craft at Kenyatta University. Omari, an American film, television, and theatre actor, screenwriter, producer, and a director, plays the role of Lucious Lyon’s half-brother in the series.

The burly, deep-voiced actor who usually spots a clean-shaven head was in East Africa for the second time in six months talking matters film. As Kenya’s nascent film industry continues to grow, Omari gave budding young actors and film directors lessons on how to make a career in the industry.

About 80 Kenyan actors and film directors signed for and attended the two-day masterclass at the Business and Students’ Centre at Kenyatta University on January 10 and 11. There is an overwhelming number of Kenyan productions that have been put out, more evident now that digitisation of television channels has created the need for content. However, the quality of storytelling — be it the scripts, shooting and editing, or performances by actors — by a majority of them, leaves a lot to be desired, if export is anything the producers are considering.

That is one reason Omari wants to be part of the film and acting communities in Africa. He has observed that the missing link in getting African stories out to the world is on how the stories come.

“When I come to Africa, talk to my brothers and sisters, and I hear all these stories and I’m like “that should be a movie, or that should be a show.” We have to train at our craft; learn and understand what it takes to be an artiste that makes people laugh, cry or be angry,” he says.

Omari says he was always a storyteller, being able to entertain people in and out of his life, from an early age. He chose to join the Marine Corps after dropping out of college in order to make money the only way he thought he could.

Then, he went back to try and earn a bachelor’s degree in business and attended a few acting classes too. From the enjoyment he got at these classes, he decided to take up more thespian lessons outside of his university course. His light bulb moment came when he got casted in his first play. That’s when he realised this was what he was meant to do, equating the adrenalin he felt on the stage to what he felt in the (American) football field or the battle fields.

He says discipline has enabled him to get to a point where he could earn a living from acting. He would have a 6am to 11pm for five years, separating his time between work as a security guard, hitting the gym and about four hours of channelling his energies into the creative process.

“Work on your craft and then when your time to shine comes, you’ll be ready. I knew my goal so I worked towards it,” he said.

Omari feels like actors and directors need to be like water, taking the shape or form of any role or story that can be brought to them rather than being rigid in whatever they believe they know. This would require also not taking things too personally when it comes to criticism and situations of work.

His push to do the workshops in Nairobi is because he believes African stories need to be told by the originators. The stories change when they are told from the perspective of someone from the outside looking in. It’s his way of giving back in the hope that the ones who will be able succeed will pass it forward to groom the next generation of creatives.

“I had a teacher who looked at me and saved my life. I wish someone who was successful had taken time out of his schedule, came to the West Side of Chicago and said “Hi guys! Let’s have fun and let me impart some wisdom in you!”

Though television drama series fans will identify Omari as playing the character of an FBI agent in “Empire”, he has also featured in various television series like “Prison Break”, “Chicago Fire”, and “Homeland”.