Omari Hardwick is taking his talents to the NFL. This week, Paramount+ announced that the 48-year-old actor will star in the new movie Fantasy Football with Kelly Rowland and Marsai Martin. The film will stream on Paramount+ starting on Friday, Nov. 25, and is directed by Anton Cooper. Fantasy Football is produced by Nickelodeon Films and also produced in association with NFL Films with the support of EA Sports, the Atlanta Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.ย
“In this hilarious and heartwarming father-daughter sports fantasy, everything changes when Callie A. Coleman (Marsai Martin) discovers she can magically control her father, Bobby’s (Omari Hardwick) performance on the football field,” the official synopsis states. “When Callie plays as her dad, a running back for the Atlanta Falcons, in EA Sportsย Madden NFL 23, Bobby is transformed from a fumblitis-plagued journeyman to a star running back bound for superstardom alongside his daughter and wife Keisha (Kelly Rowland). With the NFL Playoffs looming and the pressures of Callie’s new commitment to her friends on the robotics team mounting, the two must forge ahead to keep the magic a secret as they juggle the highs and lows of their newfound success, all as they rediscover what it really means to be a family. “
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Fantasy Football also stars Rome Flynn Elijah Richardson, Hanani Taylor, Abigail Killmeier, Tyla Harris and Isac Ivan. It’s also produced in partnership with the SpringHill Company’s Emmy Award-winning studio team founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter and Genius Entertainment, spearheaded by Marsai Martin, Joshua Martin and Carol Martin.
Hardwick is no stranger to football as he played the sport while attending the Marist High School in Atlanta and then at the University of Georgia where he was teammates with NFL Hall of Famer Champ Bailey and national champion head coach Kirby Smart. However, Hardwick always wanted to be an actor.ย
“I enjoyed sports and I was always competitive and aggressive and so sports sort of just took over. But there was always this side of me even by high school where I was like ‘Yeah, but theater is dope. It’s cool. It’s different,’” Hardwick said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2017. “So it was always there. I think the two competed. I think the artist bug and athletic bug competed at the same time, but I think the artist bug won out in terms of at least putting food on the table.” ย
