Cory Hardict is a warrior! He moved to Los Angeles with a couple of dollars to his name, and is now in one of the movies of the year so far, Battle: Los Angeles. If you’re wondering what the movie is about, Cory Hardict sums it up best saying, it’s “a war epic slash thriller action sci-fi movie.”
GlobalGrind sat down with Cory to chat about his new film, his body of work, losing his mother at a young age, and his soon-to-be-born child with his wife, actress, Tia Mowry. Check out the interview below.
GlobalGrind: One of your earlier movies was “Creature Unknown,” where there was the un-human thing in there, and now, you’re in this alien movie about L.A
Cory Hardrict: No, no, don’t – you can’t say it like that. It’s a war epic slash thriller action sci-fi movie. (laughs) Yeah.
GG: That’s exactly what it is.
CH: You got that war joint in there too ‘cause it ain’t just alien, it’s a war film mixed with the alien concept. It’s kind of like that whole “Saving Private Ryan”/”Black Hawk Down” feel then you throw “Independence Day” in there with some “District 9”/”War of the Worlds” then you got “Battle: Los Angeles.”
GG: You summed it up very well which is a good lead to the next question, as part of the preparation the cast went through boot camp. Who had the most trouble holding their gun the correct way?
CH: I mean I did sometimes, I ain’t going to put my self down as last, I didn’t have the most trouble but it was a lot of—we had to get it right, I mean, we weren’t trained. This was a lot of our first time. First time holding a M16, AK47’s, you talking about 60-75 pound weapons, you know? It was just kind of like, put your gear. So it was new to all of us. And you’re shooting this blanks, but at the same time these blanks put a hole in your hand if you make a mistake, you know? So it was kind of like it was a work in progress, you know? We all wound up getting it together. Weren’t no casualties on the film so we did alright.
GG: But Aaron broke his arm.
CH: I said casualties, ain’t nobody wound up dead. I had broken ribs, brother, fractures – you know, like messed up disc bulges. Aaron broke his arm, Ramon chipped his tooth, everybody got it, you know. Somebody broke a finger. We got war wounds from this movie so when I tell you this movie is as real as it gets, dude! It felt like we were going to the Iraqi war shooting this joint.
GG: Wow. Yeah, it looked like that too, you guys had some real in-depth battle scenes. Did you ever find yourself getting lost in those fire fights? Cause like you said, it was real stuff going on out there.
CH: Yeah, yeah, sometimes, man. With all the haze, the smoke, you know it was kind of like, bullets flying, I mean, it’s a lot of us out there, you know, you shooting at these targets, man. It’s a lot of action, non-stop on this set for like, five to six months straight. So yeah, sometimes you would, you know what I’m saying? You had to be extra cautious, like guys flying over your head, you feel the bullets (makes bullet sounds). Oh yeah, oh yeah, but it was the most gratifying experience I’ve ever had in my life just as a young actor myself, just visualizing and dreaming of being in a film of this magnitude. You know, I would love to do something like Will Smith. You know Will smith, biggest movie star in the world, you know “Independence Day.” And when I read a script about “Independence Day” and then with the war thing too. And when those two things come together and I’m actually able to be in this film and live. Man, it don’t get no better than that.
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GG: Speaking of living, there is a very emotional scene toward the end of the movie where it’s not a lot of guns, but rather a lot of emotion and acting. How’d you go about taking yourself to that emotional place?
CH: I come from a situation where my brother, you know, was killed in real life like three years ago. My brother was killed in the military so I use my real life experience to my character and I pull from all those feelings and emotions and everything I went through and the trauma from it and I put into my character and I said, “I gotta make this real” and I do sometimes deal with that pain everyday, you know, of my brothers loss. I said, ‘I’m gonna share this pain with the world to my brother’s loss in the movie’ and that’s what I did.
GG: I’m sorry to hear that. You’ve had a pretty rough life, you lost your mom as well.
CH:Yeah, I lost my mom. I mean, I’m from the South-side of Chicago and it’s crazy, Corporal Jason Lockett’s character is from the South-side of Chicago. He lost his mother and his brother so it’s like fate that God drew me in to play this role of a lifetime and all the pieces were the same as Cory Hardrict the man. That just don’t happen.
GG: It doesn’t happen a lot.
CH:It does not happen. And to this day the director, he’s just like, you know what, he just commends me for not breaking down and losing it in this movie and just kinda pulling from these true places and staying in it and giving all I had. I didn’t hold back nothing and I gave it all I got.
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GG: Now, you made a promise that you wouldn’t give up acting until you got your Oscar. That was a dream of your mothers. How long are you willing to go down that road? Do you have an idea of what the road will be that will win you an Oscar?
CH: I don’t have a timeline but I just know when I say I’m gonna do something I gotta fulfill that promise and then my work is complete. Now, whether I go on and continue to do this, you know what, that’s still to be determined. But once I get there, and ain’t nothing gonna stop me from getting there, it’s kinda like, my work is done. You know what I’m saying? Cause I don’t do this for money, I don’t do this for any applause from people. I don’t need hype men, you know, I roll alone. You know, I’m gonna die alone and I’m alone all the time and I stay simple, live a simple lifestyle, simple life.
GG: From the interaction between you and your wife Tia Mowry on twitter, you can tell the two of you are deeply in love with each other. You two have been going strong for ten years.
CH:Ten years, my wife was with me with $75 moving out to California with no money with that dream. She was by my side. She had money, had a name, had a foundation, and she believed in me, you know, a guy with two pairs of pants and two shirts, man. Moving to Inglewood with $75 knowing nobody and she kind of allowed me to be in her life to be her future husband and I found my wife and in the Bible it says, “He who finds a good wife finds a good thing” and I found it and to this day people doubted it and knocked us and, “Why you with him? He’s broke.” Blah, blah, blah, but she saw the warrior mentality that I have and that’s just to succeed by all means necessary, man. I mean, I feel like you’ll get there if you have a vision and you trust God and you believe in yourself and you work hard, you will get there. It’s just a matter of time.
GG: Have you and the wife discussed baby names?
CH: Yeah, we’re looking at warrior names as we speak. I mean, no Cory Jr. I just want to have a son’s name that speaks volumes and just have a sense of strength about his name, unique. And just mean something. So we don’t have one but we’re looking at that. Warrior names.
GG: Tell us about some of the new projects you have coming up?
CH: There’s a few things I’m attached to and I’m just waiting for start dates. But I got the dates coming out next, that’s at the end of the summer with Dominic Monaghan from “Lord of the Rings.” That movie is off the chain it’s like a “Book of Eli” meets “The Road.” It’s an apocalyptic war film through a 24 hour time span of five friends and that’s another good cross over film and everybody’s gonna enjoy that. I saw some of the cuts of that joint. And, you know, I wanna touch the masses. I just don’t wanna be that, you know what I’m saying, “He’s a brother in a movie and he’s a brother.” Strategically I’ve set my mind out to be an actor where you don’t look at race, the color barriers, the color lines.
GG: Now that you’ve worked with such a great director do you feel like you’re more prepared for your next film?
CH: Yeah, I mean, I worked with the great Clint Eastwood, and he gave me one piece of advice that I’ll always remember for the rest of my career. He said, “Never worry about what you’re gonna get, just show them what you got.” You know, he told me this at lunch shooting “Grand Torrino” and I told my wife I’d never forget what he told me. So I’m not gonna worry about the outcome, about a sequel, I’m not gonna worry about nothing, jobs, because the only thing you can do is do your best and the rest will fall in place. And that’s my focus, I can’t worry about that.
