Ambition? Sure, Rome Flynn has heard that word before.
Truth is the actor breathes that word. That word – actually – wholly defines Flynn’s journey so far. At 33, he’s already worked alongside Hollywood heavyweight Viola Davis (in ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder) and he’s currently starring alongside another Hollywood MVP in Forest Whitaker in MGM+’s magnificent drama, The Godfather of Harlem, a series about the last few years of the life of gangster Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. The show is based on fact and loaded with fiction and drama — the historical context and the high body count will absolutely keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
The series, now in its fourth season, adds Flynn as notorious gangster Frank Lucas — who got his start as Johnson’s longtime driver. And playing the man that Denzel Washington once expertly brought to life in American Gangster is a pretty, well, ambitious undertaking.
“We have a prolific actor playing one of the most notable gangsters in American history — everyone knows about it,” Flynn said. “For me, it’s about trying to carve out my own version of how I saw Frank in his early years.”
But Hollywood isn’t where Flynn’s ambition starts and stops. Before he had those Tinseltown dreams, and years before he collected a 2018 Daytime Emmy Award for his work on CBS’ long-running soap The Bold and The Beautiful, he had dreams of basketball grandeur.
And that dream was so real, that he actually kind of hasn’t let it go.
Even after he worked side-by-side with Oscar winner Davis — surely a marker of Hollywood success with a series regular role on a hit show with one of the best working actors around — he made sure a basketball wasn’t too far away. He played pick up games with a number of superstar NBA players, and he caught the attention of a college basketball coach who he joked that he still had a few years left on his eligibility — and then he played college basketball while waiting for the next role to come.
And … there’s more. On Valentine’s Day, Flynn participated in the 2025 NBA All Star Celebrity Basketball Game and impressed his coach, former MLB great Barry Bonds, and everyone else, as he hit remarkable fadeaway jumpers, a few deep threes and enough no-look passes to earn him the MVP of the game.
“Here we are now, I’ve been trying to get in the NBA All-Star game for years and it didn’t work and I feel like at the last minute they said ok,” he recalled.
Recently, Andscape spoke with the actor and athlete about working with All-Stars of all types and what he’s dreaming of next.