“Power” Star Joseph Sikora Shares Intense Story Of Armed Fans Testing His Character In Chicago

Joseph Sikora built Tommy Egan from research on Dutch Schultz and Chicago street observations. The actor shares how 50 Cent’s vision shaped the “Power” universe.

Joseph Sikora didn’t hesitate when a car pulled up on him in downtown Chicago during filming of “Power Book IV: Force.”

Two young men jumped out with guns drawn, shouting, “Yo, what’s up, Tommy?”

The actor stood frozen, staring directly at them.

“I was thinking, you know, a million thoughts really fast,” Sikora recalled on The Real Report with Tony Yayo and Uncle Murda. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to get shot. I hope the bullet goes through me. I hope I can call my wife afterwards.’”

The moment became a testament to how deeply Sikora’s portrayal of Tommy Egan had penetrated street culture. The two men weren’t trying to rob him; they were fans testing whether the actor would run.

When he didn’t, the driver nodded in approval.

“Man, I told you Tommy was that,” he said before driving off. It’s the kind of story that defines Sikora’s 13-year journey with the “Power” franchise, where the line between character and actor blurred in ways few could predict.

Sikora built Tommy Egan from historical research and street observation. He studied Dutch Schultz, the Prohibition-era beer baron of the Bronx whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer.

“He was just a rowdy dude, but also there was the humanity,” Sikora explained. The actor drew inspiration from Schultz’s ruthlessness, the gangster would soak rags in diseased water and hang men upside down on meat hooks, but also his vulnerability.

When Lucky Luciano embarrassed Schultz at a commission meeting, the tough guy cried in front of other gangsters. That duality became Tommy’s foundation.

Beyond historical figures, Sikora based Tommy on the dangerous men he’d observed growing up in Chicago.

“I played around in the streets in Chicago and I based Tommy a lot on the guys I was scared of,” he said. “You get into those situations and like these guys that are just you know you you guys I know you know it’s like where you get into that room and it’s just the air is different. It’s the vibration is different and then there’s that guy and you’re like man don’t p### that guy off.”

When “Power” creator 50 Cent decided Ghost had to die for the franchise to survive, Sikora understood the narrative necessity.

“Somebody’s got to die. I didn’t know if it was Tommy. I didn’t know it was Ghost. But I did know that it has to be a martyr for the thing to live on,” Sikora said. “Jesus had to die so the religion could live. You know what I mean? Like the Power Show had to have this sacrificial lamb in some sort of capacity so that the subsequent spin-offs could work.”

The actor who once walked the streets of Chicago in a leather coat, embodying a character so real that strangers pulled guns just to test his nerve, has become a fixture in television’s most ambitious crime universe.

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