Fantasy Football Stars Kelly Rowland, Rome Flynn, and Omari Hardwick Talk Family and The Power Of Marsai Martin
Paramount+ brings football home just in time for Thanksgiving in their new sports-comedy Fantasy Football. Led by Marsai Martin, Omari Hardwick, Kelly Rowland, and Rome Flynn, it follows a daughter who discovers she can magically control the performance of her football-playing father through her gaming console. Pop Culture Planet spoke with Hardwick, Flynn, and Rowland about the new film and working alongside wonderkind Marsai Martin.
Rowland called Martin a “force of nature” and expressed how close they got on set. “Marsai has truly become family to me. We had a blast on set. Her, myself, Omari, we cracked jokes. We did TikToks. We talked about everything from life and family [to] being silly and dancing. She is really just a force of nature. She truly is.”
Meanwhile Flynn revealed how impressed he was with the 18-year-old actress’ work ethic. “I was aware of Marsai from the work she’d done on Black-ish, but I’m way more impressed with just how she’s navigated as this leader only only being 18. It just shows you that she’s so talented beyond her age,” he shared. “The moment that they announced that she had a production company and she did the film with Issa Rae I feel like a lot of people looked at that and [were] unsure because of her age, but the moment you saw her on screen, the moment you saw the quality and the people that got behind her, you were kist like this girl is literally going places.”
“She’s accomplished so much I feel like in a couple years she could just say, ‘I’m good, y’all. I did everything [and] I’m just going to travel the world right now,’” he continued. “I mean, she could literally go anywhere, do anything. She’s such an inspiration to young Black girls and women in general. She’s just a little boss. Man, I love working with her.”
Hardwick agreed, saying, “When you think about an 18-year-old young woman being what Rome coined up perfectly — being a boss — she's balanced. I think I just started dating at that age she presently is — and she's running a company!”
Rowland also shared what she learned working alongside this cast on the set of Fantasy Football. “I’m still a student at acting, but I sat and watched Omari think his way through a scene. I saw him figure it out. I saw it mean a lot to him to make everything just as fluid and organic as possible. It was so beautiful to watch him work,” she said. “He’s all in when he does it and I admire that about him for sure.”
The cast all agreed that the family they built both on screen and behind-the-scenes made this a wonderful filming experience. “The cast came together as a beautiful family,” said Hardwick, explaining some of the background of their characters. “We decided as a collective that Rome was not the antagonist, that Bobby Coleman played by Omari was not the protagonist. I equally was antagonistic to the family [who was] trying to remind me: ‘We’re all you got.’ The four of us just operated in that way and […] we absolutely became a family. It is definitely one of the better casts I've been around. Everyone humble, grounded, ready to work, focused.”
Fantasy Football is streaming on Paramount+.
