Living in his car before Power

Omari Hardwick, known to many viewers as Ghost on the series Power, has spoken about a time when he was broke and had no connections in Hollywood. In an appearance on The Real, reported by Black America Web in February 2016, he described how he had left home to pursue acting and found himself without a place to stay.

Help came through an unexpected route. Hardwick worked as a substitute teacher and coach at Campbell Hall, the Los Angeles-area high school attended by John David Washington, the oldest son of Denzel and Pauletta Washington. He also became John David's trainer and mentor at UCLA on Saturday mornings. Through this, he met the parents, and he describes them as surrogate aunt and uncle who gave him shelter when he had nowhere to stay. With their encouragement he kept taking acting classes and considered becoming a firefighter. In fact, he was offered a firefighter job the same day he received his first job from Spike Lee.

Not everything went smoothly. His first acting role was in a pilot for Showtime that was filmed in San Francisco and promised to become a series, but it never happened. He was back on the streets, literally, as he puts it, living in his car and completely broke. His parents told him they loved him but that he could not come back home.

His family raised about 2,500 dollars for him and Pauletta Washington. With Denzel's permission, Pauletta paid enough on his car to keep it from being repossessed. Hardwick repaid the money, and the Washingtons framed the check. After that, he said, he kept his foot to the grind. He later mentored the actor Michael B. Jordan in a similar way, writing in a post that he was always next to him. The article does not give his age or how long he was homeless.