Landon Buford
Courtney Kemp was the latest guest on “The Crew Has It” Podcast with Michael Rainey Jr. and Gianni Paolo. During her appearance the creator of the Power Universe discussed a lot of different topics including how everyone was casted.
‘First hurdle is who can play Ghost, and this is where we talk about institutionalized racism. I want to say this first: Ghost on the page was intelligent and physically imposing. People thought of black actors in two categories Sidney Poitier and Andre Braugher. You were some like muscle man; it was just never you could never bring those two things together, and so at first they were all like, well who are you going to get to play Ghost. Who are you going to get to play Ghost? Who’s going to have all of that, and I was like I knew who I wanted,” said Kemp.
“I wanted Omari Hardwick. That’s who I wanted from the beginning, but there was like some do-si-do nonsense about someone else who was a name because they didn’t know how to do that, and then once that person passed, it was like Omar’s the only person I can think of who has all the things so then once we had Omari we were casting Tommy, Angela, and Tasha all off of him.”
She would then drops some nuggets for writers watching this interview at home.
“For anyone who’s a writer at home you have your main character and the other characters in that like I’d say if you have a central like whether it’s a family or however you’re doing it. All those characters should serve in some way to illustrate what’s right with or what’s wrong with your main character. So for example, when you have Ghost and Tommy, Tommy is wild he’s crazy he’s free. He’s allowed to do and say s***,” Kemp shared.
“So, if you think about in the pilot, what’s that redhead? You got some redheaded girl tall serving drinks in there? What’s her name? Ghost says her name is don’t touch the merchandise. That’s Ghost. He’s so closed and tight; he’s always making decisions and always in the right place.
So, if you think about in the pilot, what’s that redhead? You got some redheaded girl tall serving drinks in there? What’s her name? Ghost says her name is don’t touch the merchandise. That’s Ghost. He’s so closed and tight; he’s always making decisions and always in the right place. So, Tommy is there to illustrate that he’s his own character, but he’s also there to show that ghost is planning where he is or is reacting.”
Later in the interview, Kemp revealed that the opening scene was the audition scene for Ghost and Tommy.
“He [Ghost] is definitely like a full-on homicidal maniac which you learn like minute night that’s when I think he kills Miguel. By the way that’s the audition scene. That was their audition scene.”
If you forgot what scene Kemp is talking about, it is the scene that features Tommy Egan, Ghost, Miguel, and his girlfriend Maria in the basement of Truth Night Club. Ghost ends up killing Miguel because he stole money and drugs from Ghost and Tommy and stashed it. Tommy wanted to kill Maria, too, so she wouldn’t come back to harm them in the future, despite being blindfolded. However, Ghost would tell them to let her go, and in season six, she was a witness for the Feds in their Rico cases against the Egan and St. Patrick Drug Organization.
