The Greatest brings along the first authorised scripted television show about Muhammad Ali’s life which explores his personal relationships with his family and focuses on the pivotal moments that made him the legend and icon that he is today.
In an interview with Nexus Point News, Omari Hardiwick, Dana Gourrier, and Amin Joseph all discussed what it means as Black people to not only make the previous generation proud but also what it takes to continue pushing forward through the unfair injustice that continues to exist all these years later.
Just wanted to firstly thank you for your performance originally in Power because that’s what made me get into this profession. So I just wanted to thank you a lot for that, and your performance in this [The Greatest] is killer, so thanks.
Omari Hardwick: That means a lot to me. That’s a very humbling way to start this interview, bro. I appreciate you.
The first episode showcases the segregation in his town and how he was already making the older generation proud. This is something that still hasn’t changed to this day, with Black people continuously having to prove themselves. It’s still a world that largely favours the white person. Why was this so important to highlight in the show, and what do you hope for audiences to take away from Clay’s story?
Omari Hardwick: That’s a great way to lead off. I think I’ll piggyback your point and try to get through it as quickly as possible and articulate it. I heard God, years ago, say that I was supposed to be really, really big and have a big microphone and a big stage, and you know, if you feel called to something, it’s early that you hear it. You can ignore it all you want, but if you’re audacious and have enough moxie and you got a boldness about you and an edge about you, then you’re going to really run from that. I didn’t run from it, and my negotiation often with God had to be a renegotiation, like revisiting a book that you read over time. My negotiation is often this thing that is going to make it where I can’t walk around with the family a lot, right?
That fame becomes a thing, and I wasn’t really big on that, but I embrace it fully knowing that I can aid someone or someone’s [plural] at maximising their bag that God has gifted them with. At getting everything out of it before they leave Earth. That’s very big for me. So, is every moment of me as an actor met with me being an activist? May not every moment in terms of how it looks, but every moment in terms of the spirit of it, there’s never a moment I’m acting where the part or the role is not of community outreach and each part is different, and as you know, I play criminality a lot and I play ferocious a lot, so I add as much vulnerability as God has always gifted me with having.
It’s something that I had at birth, but there is a potential when you have a film and you have a Ben Watkins with the film and/or TV show, and Ben has those similar sensibilities. Ben Watkins, our creator, our writer, producer, director. He’s got very similar sensibilities, and so for him to go, “I gotta marry my activism as Ben Watkins to my art as a writer, as a director, as a producer as…” He’s everything in this one. You get these incredible landmark moments where it’s a painting.
That moment where you get that elder gentleman saluting out of having fought for our country and then coming back and pushing a broom, and he’s right in front of again another pictorial moment where it’s whites only, blacks [only], right. Then you got [Muhammad] Ali going off from having come home from Rome but now going off into the horizon to be one of the greatest Black men our culture ever knew and the most recognisable face, Black, green, pink, or polka dot at one point, and may still, even in posthumous reality, he’s the most recognisable face on the planet, oftentimes, if you see his face next to anybody’s face.
This guy saluting that is an image that had to be captured, and I think that each generation is trying to push the generation further. You know, technological advancement has made it a bit difficult now, but you started out this incredible question with saying, “Omari, I got into this business because of you and your performance.” That, to me, makes me look up to the sky and go “God, you weren’t wrong.” I know he wasn’t, but it’s a double affirmation when you say what you said, so it’s me doing that to you [salutes me], it’s you doing that to me, and this interview is happening, so for Ben to capture that, for this show to capture that, chef’s kiss.
Dana Gourrier: In that scene above the gentleman’s head, if I remember correctly, it said “Whites Only.” So he salutes Muhammad’s character to see; it’s only for Cassius Jr, and I think that symbolically [means that] this man has sacrificed his life in service so that someone like Muhammad can flourish. That was the point, and the salute is, “I’m passing the torch down to you. Don’t leave anyone behind. Just like I sacrificed, you must as well.” It isn’t much different from today. I’ve spoken about this in other interviews. My mother and my father both experienced Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. My mother absolutely drank from a Black fountain or Negro, as it was labelled.
My father absolutely sat in the back of the bus, especially in church, and even in worshipping, they had to sit in the back of church. They were alive and existed during that time, and they’re still alive, God bless, today. So, I think that the main issue is that people think that there’s such a wider gap between then and now, and it isn’t. It’s a blink of an eye in the span of time – how long ago the Civil Rights Movement was? It wasn’t long ago, and currently, I think we have a lot of work to do, not only as a culture of people but also collectively and universally as a world of people. There is a lot of injustice and unfairness that still happens to this day, and we really need to iron it out. We really need to figure out what is best for all involved.
Amin Joseph: I feel like there’s always a circle of truth around my head that you don’t go out and embarrass your family, that you may come from humble beginnings, but you keep your head high, that you stay respectful, and that you keep God first. I think those are things that permeate through my life. It’s the things that I instill into my children. I think that’s part of what the culture should be, and I think that we’ve gotten away from that somehow, especially in the Black culture.
That’s what makes this story so compelling: this was a man [Muhammad Ali] that was principled, and sometimes it feels like it’s hard to live up to the Superman that Muhammad Ali was, but in this situation, in this version, we get to see a young Cassius, and we get to see the way to become a leader. You get to see the followership. You get to see the things that created that man, and that’s much more palatable. That’s much more accessible that you can say, “Hey, I can do things to be a little bit more honourable, to stand up with a little bit more intensity and authenticity.”
The Greatest is now streaming on Prime Video.
