Check out Omari Washington’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Omari Washington.

Omari, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I was born in Chicago on July 14th 1987. I’m half Nigerian and half American. My mother passed away when I was about five years old. After that my father got re-married to a Nigerian woman. Shortly after the marriage, I dealt with a good amount of physical, verbal and mental abuse which led me to attempting suicide. To be quite honest, acting saved my life. After my first suicide attempt, I started watching a good amount of movies and T.V. shows to keep my mind off the abuse. That’s when I fell in love with acting. At the age of 12, the acting bug bit me. That’s when I auditioned for the role of Tin Man in the “Wizard of Oz”, I landed the role. Soon after that, I was the role of Smee in “Hook” the stage play. Once I felt the rush from doing stage plays I wanted to branch out and challenge myself as an actor, so I begged my father to enroll me in an acting school and he made it happen. I ended up being dropped from the school due to father not having the funds for me to continue my training.

Shortly thereafter I started acting in stage plays in high school. Once I had more experience under my belt, I started going out on film auditions shortly after I graduated from high school. I wanted to make sure I had a good backup plan for my acting career so I can have a stream of revenue while pursuing my dream, so I enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu for culinary arts. Once I graduated culinary school, I worked in several restaurants for ten plus years, which put my acting dreams on hold temporarily. In 2012, I was a head chef for an upscale nursing home making great money but I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t acting. That’s when I decided to make the move to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of acting and take my acting ability to the next level. Moving to LA was the best decision of my life. My first year was the craziest. I moved to LA with $1,500 in my account and used all my money to pay for three months of rent. My first year I didn’t do ANY acting because I was so busy working as a dishwasher at Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, I hated every second of it. I ended leaving that job and working at an Italian Restaurant as a line cook working 60 plus hours a week. Once again the money was great but I wasn’t happy. Fortunately, the restaurant ended up closing for renovation.

At this point, I was able to focus on acting again. At first, I wasn’t getting auditions so I did extra work and audience work as well. Things slowly started picking up for me. After a few weeks of doing extra work, I went on an audition for a feature film “Assassin’s Game” featuring Vivica Foxx, Tom Sizemore, and Bai Ling. I ended up booking a lead role in the film. The crazy part is I found the audition for the film off Craigslist which made me skeptical and I wasn’t gonna go but I was thinking it doesn’t hurt to try. It was WELL worth working alongside legends, to say the least. After I wrapped up the film I booked another lead role in the feature film “Bunnyman Vengeance”. After my feature film success, I started booking bigger gigs. 2018 was the best year of my acting career so far. I booked five co-star roles on major networks and two national commercials. I was fortunate to work on Lethal Weapon, The Bold and the Beautiful, Pink Collar Crimes, All American and Good Trouble. The two national commercials were for Michelin and Reddi Wip. I’m extremely proud of all my accomplishments thus far and this is only the beginning. Even though I experienced a lot of pain in life, it was ALL worth it. I recently started to see a therapist for all the trauma I experienced when I was young and it has helped in so many ways.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I create art as an actor and also through my production company “Living and Loving Life Productions”. I produce films that inspire you to live your best life. I came up with the inspiration for my company at the age of 12 when I was going through dark times in my life. I wanted to inspire people from every walk of life to live and love their best life. I’ve produced four short films, produced and edited a web series, directed two short films, shot two demo reels, was a dp for two short films, shot a TON headshots, model shots, lifestyle shots, editorial shots and I was also a videographer /photographer for the Inglewood Jets in the Snoop Dogg League. I’m beyond proud of how much my company has grown.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
I define success by how many lives I can enhance through my performances and by how many people I can help on the way to the top. I feel like selflessness is a great quality to have on the verge of obtaining success on the biggest scale because I believe you receive what you give. In other words, you can only receive as much as you give.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
You can find my work on my personal Facebook and fan page under Omari Washington. My Instagram username is @omariwashington. My Twitter handle is omariwinner1. You can also find me on youtube and Imdb if you search Omari Washington. Last but not least, you can also see my work on my website at www.omariwashington.com.

I’ll be premiering in Good Trouble on April 1st on the Freeform Network at 8pm PST.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.omariwashington.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omariwashington/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/omariwashing
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Omariwinner1

Image Credit:
Chris Wood

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