The Wire (TV Program)

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    ‘Snoop’ Pearson and Ed Burns Reunite 16 Years After ‘The Wire’

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    The actress known for stealing scenes in “The Wire” is teaming with series co-creator Ed Burns to turn her life story into a TV show.Felicia “Snoop” Pearson is running a few minutes late to a joint interview alongside her writing partner Ed Burns, so Burns fills the time with a helpful story about one of the few other instances of her truancy.More than two decades ago, the actor Michael K. Williams had asked Pearson to accompany him onto the set of “The Wire” after she brazenly introduced herself to him at a Baltimore nightclub.Burns, who with David Simon cocreated the landmark show that explored institutional failures, admired her distinct tattoos and gravelly Baltimore drawl. Williams and some of the actors vouched for Pearson as an authentic resource who would give the show additional credibility.Burns had a spot on the show for her, he promised, if she limited any illicit activity and showed up the next week.The day Pearson was to appear on camera, Burns said, he received a frantic phone call. “I didn’t know the car was stolen,” Pearson hurriedly began.Through some deciphering, Burns discovered that Pearson had visited New York with friends for Pride Week. During the journey, they noticed a cop car’s flashing lights and pulled over. The driver of the car had no idea the vehicle he had purchased was stolen. Police searched Pearson, discovered a pocketknife and took her into custody. She did not make call time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cop TV Shows: A Brief History of the Police Procedural

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      The genre dates back to the dawn of television, but it has evolved over the years.Scripted television is all but unimaginable without the soothingly formulaic, reliably satisfying police procedural. But the genre has evolved with the medium, becoming grittier, more realistic and more sophisticated — up to a point. In the same way some argue that all war movies are pro-war movies, critics maintain that cop shows inescapably glorify police officers and denigrate perpetrators.Here’s a look at several important cop shows and how the genre has changed over the decades.‘Dragnet’ (debuted in 1951)Adapted from a radio program by its creator and star, Jack Webb, “Dragnet” was one of the most popular cop shows ever, rising as high as No. 2 in the ratings behind “I Love Lucy.”“Dragnet” set the genre’s resilient template: Each episode featured a new crime for the detective partners to solve. Made in extensive consultation with the real-life Los Angeles Police Department (which provided a steady supply of authentic cases on which to base episodes), it also introduced the trend of what critics characterize as an overly deferential view toward law enforcement.‘Hill Street Blues’ (1981)After “Dragnet,” popular cop shows like “Kojak,” “Columbo” and “Cagney & Lacey” injected additional personality into its crime solvers, according to the book “Cop Shows.” But it was “Hill Street Blues” that successfully depicted the sour tones of the job and the toll it could take on officers.Its critical acclaim, including five Emmys for outstanding drama, ensured its influence over the next generation of police procedurals. “With its serial structure, ensemble cast of characters, willingness to be dark and have the characters be unlikable on some level, it was a real stretch from ‘Dragnet,’” said Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, a professor of media studies at DePauw University.‘N.Y.P.D. Blue’ (1993)Along with “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” which brought the profession’s R-rated language and themes to the screen, “Law & Order” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” helped pave the way for the prestige television boom. Each show was brought to network television in the early 1990s with the help of “Hill Street Blues” alumni, building on that show’s realism and sense of place.“Law & Order” has lasted 22 seasons and spawned no fewer than eight spinoffs, while “Homicide: Life on the Street” used vérité-style camerawork to plumb race relations in Baltimore. “N.Y.P.D. Blue” tracked Detective Andy Sipowicz’s evolution to more enlightened racial views over a dozen seasons.The commitment to realism had a range of implications. Bill Clark, a former New York City detective who was a producer on “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” said melodramatic story lines were not always reflective of regular policing methods.“One of the things I was always offended by in other cop shows was in an interrogation room where cops beat the crap out of the guy,” he said.‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ (2000)The innovation that “CSI” provided the cop show was technology, with its investigators using the latest in forensic know-how to crack Las Vegas’s hard cases. In other ways, though, “CSI” was a throwback, relying heavily on the procedural structure that dates back to “Dragnet.”It worked: “CSI” was a top 10 show in each of its first nine seasons, peaking at No. 1. It resulted not only in three direct spinoffs but even more copycats.Some have theorized that the show also generated a “CSI Effect,” in which real-life jurors unrealistically expect compelling forensic evidence.‘The Wire’ (2002)There had never been a crime show quite like “The Wire.”It not only depicted problems with the aims and methods of policing, but at times placed the blame on fundamentally corrupted systems and initiatives like the war on drugs.The critically acclaimed show was created for HBO by Ed Burns, a former Baltimore homicide detective, and David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter who had written for “Homicide: Life on the Street,” a series that was based on his 1991 book.The crime novelist George Pelecanos, who wrote for “The Wire,” said Simon’s pitch was not “a thought-provoking look at the issues in the inner city,” but a show about cops and drug dealers. But, Pelecanos added, “I knew where his heart was. This wasn’t going to be the usual thing where bad guys are pursued and caught.”‘East New York’ (2022)“East New York,” which debuted on CBS on Sunday, follows in the tradition of the police procedural. But its producers are hoping to highlight underemphasized aspects of policing, such as officers building relationships with the community.“Catching bad guys is what cops did in the days of ‘Dragnet,’ and it’s what they still do,” said William Finkelstein, a creator of “East New York” and a veteran of “Law & Order” and “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” “But how do they do it? And what’s their relationship to the people they’re policing?” More

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      Wendell Pierce Steps Into ‘Death of a Salesman’

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      A Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman” has a Black lead for the first time, giving Pierce a chance to step into a role he was “born to play.”“Are my best days behind me?” Wendell Pierce said as he put down his steak knife. “Was I ever any good? A man can’t go out the way he came in. A man has got to add up to something.” It was here that he began to cry.This was on a recent weekday evening at the Palm, an upscale steakhouse in the theater district, and Pierce was quoting, at least in part, from Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” which is in previews now and will open on Broadway on Oct. 9, following a successful London run a few years ago. Pierce, 58, stars as Willy Loman, the decompensating salesman of the title. It is his first Broadway appearance in more than 30 years. And even though Pierce has enjoyed a robust career, which includes long stints on prestige television shows and an Obie award for sustained excellence of performance, the questions that obsess Willy — questions of attainment, opportunity, legacy — are questions that obsess him as well. So much that when asked to consider them, he found himself weeping into his surf and turf.“I want to make my mark, too,” he said. “I’m like Willy Loman.”Pierce grew up in Pontchartrain Park, a midcentury New Orleans suburb that attracted middle-class Black families. He graduated from an arts high school, then matriculated at Juilliard, graduating in 1985. For years he was a journeyman, filming an episode of television here, a movie there, then perhaps appearing in a play, like Caryl Churchill’s finance industry farce, “Serious Money,” which came to Broadway, briefly, in 1988. (He has helped to produce two other Broadway shows, but “Salesman” marks his return as an actor.)In 2001, he was cast as William Moreland, a detective nicknamed Bunk, on the HBO series “The Wire.” While Bunk’s partner, Dominic West’s Jimmy McNulty, commanded the larger story lines, Bunk emerged as a character as richly drawn and portrayed as any. When the writer David Simon began to dream up his next series, “Treme,” created with Eric Overmyer, he built a role, that of the trombonist Antoine Batiste, with Pierce explicitly in mind.Sharon D Clarke as Linda Loman and Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” which opens Oct. 9 at the Hudson Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“He can play anything,” Simon explained in a recent phone conversation. “He can play belligerent, he can play vulnerable, wounded. The angles are all really acute.” Simon went on, calling Pierce an actor’s actor, a student of the human condition, a “total pro.”That evening, at the Palm, Pierce looked professional, dapper and gentlemanly in a well-cut suit and pinstriped shirt. He has a round face, like a moon that’s nearly full, streaks of silver in his beard and deep-set, observant eyes. His expression looks as if it ought to relax into a smile, but it doesn’t. If you have heard his voice, then you will know that it is rich and sonorous, barrel-aged, with cadences that border on the biblical. Had acting not worked out, he has the skill set to have made a great career as a preacher, which he seems to know.“Here endeth the sermon,” he joked at the close of one of his speeches. And then, self-consciously: “Actors, man.”Acting did, of course, work out. (Detours into entrepreneurship have met with perhaps less success.) But Pierce has rarely been a leading man and he’s aware of that, sometimes painfully. His résumé reveals a long career as an ensemble player, a sidekick, lately a dad, nearly always an actor who subsumes himself to the character. When I mentioned to friends that I would soon speak with him, there was often a pause while they scrambled to look up his credits, followed by a “Yes. Of course. That guy.”Simon has a theory about this. Two theories. One emphasizes the texture and realism of Pierce’s acting. “A lot of our culture is about everything is heightened. And nothing about Wendell Pierce’s performances are ever heightened,” he said. The other comes down to a question of prettiness. “Wendell has an everyman look,” Simon said. “He’s an attractive man. But he has an everyman look.”And yet, all of this — the everyman quality, the realism, the vexed relationship to his own success — makes him ideal for Willy. As Marianne Elliott, who co-directed the London production of “Salesman” put it in a recent conversation: “He was kind of born to play it. He’s so perfect for the part.” Perfect, but with one significant departure. Pierce is Black. And Willy, in America, has nearly always been played by white men.A few years ago, while directing “Angels in America,” Elliott had an idea for a “Death of a Salesman” with a Black family at its center. Together with her associate director, Miranda Cromwell, who is directing the Broadway production, and in conversation with Rebecca Miller, Arthur Miller’s daughter, Elliott put together a workshop as proof of concept. When they saw that this staging could work, with hardly any changes to the script, Elliott and Cromwell reached out to Pierce, seeking an actor of both stature and deep feeling.Willy Loman is a role that Pierce never anticipated having the opportunity to play and a role that yet felt uniquely personal.Nate Palmer for The New York Times“He’s an exceptionally classically trained, brilliant actor, but he has so much heart, so much warmth, so much charisma,” Cromwell explained in a recent interview. “There is a complication within him and a vulnerability.”“He is not afraid to share his personal lived experience,” Cromwell continued, “and really be vulnerable on that stage.”Pierce sprang at it. Because Willy Loman is a great role and a lead role, a role that he never anticipated having the opportunity to play and a role that yet felt uniquely personal, even though Pierce has the gift of making every role he plays feel personal.“Wendell acts the way he lives: With the deepest appreciation for where he’s from and an insatiable curiosity of where he can go,” said John Krasinski, Pierce’s co-star in the Amazon series “Jack Ryan.”REHEARSALS BEGAN in 2019 and the show, which co-starred Sharon D Clarke as Willy’s wife Linda, opened in June at the Young Vic in London before transferring to the West End that fall. In a glowing review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley noted that in Pierce’s hands, “what has often felt like a plodding walk to the grave in previous incarnations becomes a propulsive — and compulsively watchable — dance of death.”That wasn’t necessarily what I saw when I visited the New York rehearsal room in early September to watch the cast — all new, except for Pierce and Clarke — work through the first scene of “Death of a Salesman.” After the cast sang a spiritual, Pierce entered, plodding, through a stage door. “I’m tired to the death,” his Willy said. His overcoat seemed made of lead and he looked hunched, beaten down, a decade older easily.But this, he explained to me at dinner, is what he spends the rest of the play fighting against. Those sunken shoulders represent every obstacle that Willy encounters, the threats to his livelihood, his masculinity, his sense of himself as a self-made all-American man. In this production it also represents the racist behavior that Willy faces, the microaggressions and epithets.“I have to know and feel that lead coat, the heaviness and the weight of the world that is placed upon Willy so that I can fight with all the fire and exuberance,” he said.Clarke, the Tony-nominated actress who has worked with him for more than three years, noted the energy that Pierce had brought to the role and the sense of overpowering love that his Willy has for Linda and their children.Pierce, right, as Bunk Moreland in “The Wire,” with Dominic West, left, and Larry Gilliard Jr. David Lee/HBO“His Willy is so lovable,” she said in a recent interview. “He will make you laugh, he will make you feel joyous, which makes the heartbreak at the end all the more deep and all the more resonant.”Rendering the Loman family as Black aggravates that heartbreak. As Cromwell explained it, the play remains the same, but its themes hit even harder. “The play is still, I believe, about the American dream,” she said. “When we see that through the lens of a Black family, we really see how much further away that dream is.”Playing Willy has eluded the great Black actors of previous generations, if they dared to dream it at all. In considering the opportunity, Pierce listed off at least a dozen actors — James Earl Jones, Ossie Davis, Roscoe Lee Browne among them — whom he thinks of as his forebears, all of whom, he believes, would have made a magnificent Willy.“I am humbled to be here now for them, to honor them, to honor their desires,” he said. “I owe it to them to step up and do my part and make a contribution to the American theater and that’s a humbling and a beautiful honor to have.”That contribution may hit differently here than it did in London, when this distinctly American play has returned to an American stage and to America’s particular racial climate. Cromwell told me that the play felt changed already.“Because it is closer to home,” she said. “I really feel that it’s holding a mirror to itself. It’s a great classic play being seen through a lens that it hasn’t been seen through before. And it will be surprising and dangerous in that space.”That this lens centers a Black family has and will continue to make headlines. But Pierce brings much more than his race to Willy, and the role has brought him things in return, some of which he anticipated, some he didn’t. Willy’s mortality has made him conscious of his own. He has dreamed about death throughout the rehearsal process — his own death, those of his loved ones — and had been preoccupied with how much time he has left and if he has used his time well.Willy finds solace, however incomplete, in his family. Pierce has never married. He has no children. And yet, he relates to Willy in this way, too, as a man who has put his career above his personal life. “My disruption has been that personal aspect,” he said. “So now I’m trying to learn the lesson of not being blind to what’s there. That’s what the lesson of this play will be for me.”Well, it’s one lesson. Others help him to appreciate the work and the choices that have brought him here. People have told him that he shouldn’t think of himself as a journeyman actor, but he does. And that, he said, is what makes him so much like Willy. He was crying through this, too. And he asked me to write about it, so that a reader would understand how much all of this means to him.“I want people to know. I want people to know. I want them to know,” he said. “It’s close. It’s so close. I’m proud of that.” More

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      ‘The Wire’ Creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, on the Show 20 Years Later

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      David Simon concedes that it takes a special kind of [expletive] to say, “I told you so.”“But I can’t help it, OK?” he said recently. “Nobody enjoys the guy who says, ‘I told you so,’ but it was organic. Ed and I and then the other writers, as they came on board, we had all been watching some of the same things happen in Baltimore.”Two decades ago, Simon, a former cops reporter at The Baltimore Sun, joined Ed Burns, a retired Baltimore homicide detective and public-school teacher, to create HBO’s “The Wire.” Fictitious but sourced from the Baltimore that Simon and Burns inhabited, “The Wire,” which premiered on June 2, 2002, introduced a legion of unforgettable characters like the gun-toting, code-abiding Omar Little (played by the late Michael K. Williams) and the gangster with higher aspirations, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba).They were indelible pieces of a crime show with a higher purpose: to provide a damning indictment of the war on drugs and a broader dissection of institutional collapse, expanding in scope over five seasons to explore the decline of working-class opportunity and the public education system, among other American civic pillars.Michael B. Jordan, left, and Larry Gilliard Jr. in the first season of “The Wire.” The show’s drug dealers were as complex and three-dimensional as its police.HBO, via PhotofestThis was not the stuff of hit TV: In real time, the show gained only a small, devoted audience and struggled to avoid cancellation. But over the years, “The Wire” became hailed as one of television’s greatest shows, even as the systemic decay it depicted became more pronounced in the eyes of its creators.Burns and Simon went on to collaborate on other high-minded projects for HBO, most recently “We Own This City,” a mini-series created by Simon and their fellow “Wire” alumnus George Pelecanos, based on the true story of the Baltimore Police Department’s corrupt Gun Trace Task Force. In separate interviews, Burns and Simon discussed the legacy of “The Wire” — Burns by phone from his Vermont home and Simon in person in HBO’s Manhattan offices — and why it couldn’t be made in the same way today. They also talked about the inspirations for the show and the devastating effect of America’s drug policies. These are edited excerpts from those conversations.Could you have ever imagined “The Wire” would have had this kind of staying power two decades later?ED BURNS The first thing that comes to my mind is that this show will live forever, because what it tries to portray will be around forever. It’s just getting worse and worse. That’s all. And it’s expanding; it’s not just an urban thing anymore. It’s everywhere.DAVID SIMON Ed and I in Baltimore, George in Washington, Richard Price in New York — we’d been seeing a lot of the same dynamics. There were policies, and there were premises that we knew were not going to earn out. They were going to continue to fail. And we were fast becoming a culture that didn’t even recognize its own problems, much less solve any of them. So it felt like, “Let’s make a show about this.”I didn’t anticipate the complete collapse of truth, the idea of you can just boldly lie your way to the top. I did not anticipate the political collapse of the country in terms of [Donald] Trump. [The fictitious Baltimore mayor in “The Wire,” Tommy Carcetti] is a professional politician. Donald Trump is sui generis. It’s hard to even get your head around just how debased the political culture is now because of Trump.From left, the director Clark Johnson, the executive producer Robert Colesberry, Simon and Ed Burns on the set of “The Wire” in 2002.David Lee/HBOThe show seemed to hint at the collapse of truth with the fabricated serial killer story line in the final season, and how the media ran with it.SIMON We very much wanted to criticize the media culture that could allow the previous four seasons to go on and never actually attend to any of the systemic problems. We were going there, but I didn’t anticipate social media making the mainstream miscalculations almost irrelevant. You don’t even have to answer to an inattentive, but professional press. You just have to create the foment in an unregulated environment in which lies travel faster the more outrageous they are. If truth is no longer a metric, then you can’t govern yourself properly.BURNS If you look at the map, half of the Midwest and West are drought-ridden, and we’re treating it like how we used to treat a dead body on the corner or a handcuffed guy. It’s like a news thing or bad automobile accident: “Oh my, look, that tornado ripped apart this whole town.” And that’s it.There’s no energy. I’ve always thought about trying to do a story where the government has developed an algorithm to identify sparks, the Malcolm Xs and the Martin Luther Kings, these types of people, when they’re young, and then they just either compromise them away with the carrot or they beat them away with a stick. Because you need sparks. You need those individuals who will stand up and then rally people around them, and we don’t have that — those sparks, that anger that sustains itself.Is it a conflicting legacy that “The Wire” has gained a greater audience over the years, yet the institutional decay that it illuminates has seemingly worsened?BURNS Recently, the Biden administration and the New York mayor’s administration said they want to increase the number of police on the street. It amuses me that what they’re doing is a definition of insanity: You try something, it doesn’t work. You try it again, it doesn’t work. It’s about time you try something different. They’re still doing the same thing.Granted, “defund the police” is not the right way of presenting the argument. But rechanneling money away from the police to people who could better handle some of the aspects of it would be good. And then doing something even more dramatic, like creating an economic engine, other than drugs, to help people get up and start making something of their lives.In “The Wire,” even well-intentioned officers like Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West, left, with Benjamin Busch and Jonnie Louis Brown) were subject to a police department with misplaced priorities.Paul Schiraldi/HBOHow should “We Own This City,” be viewed in relation to “The Wire?”SIMON It’s a separate narrative. We’re very serious about having attended to real police careers and real activities and a real scandal that occurred. So no, it’s not connected to “The Wire” universe in that sense. It is a coda for the drug war that we were trying to critique in “The Wire.” If “The Wire” had one political message — I don’t mean theme; if it just had a blunt political argument about policy — it was, “End the drug war.” And if “We Own This City” has one fundamental message, it’s “END. THE. DRUG. WAR.” In capital letters and with a period between every word. It’s just an emphatic coda about where we were always headed if we didn’t change the mission of policing in America.Is a goal of “We Own This City” to provide a sharper critique on policing than “The Wire” provided?SIMON No. I don’t think there’s that much difference between the two, other than the depths of the corruption of the bad cops. Police work is as necessary and plausible an endeavor as it’s ever been.In many cases, and in many places like Baltimore, the national clearance rate has been collapsing for the last 30, 40 years. That’s not an accident. That’s because they’ve trained generations of cops to fight the drug war. It doesn’t take any skill to go up on the corner, throw everybody against the wall, go in their pockets, find the ground stashes, decide everybody goes, fill the wagons. That’s not a skill set that can solve a murder.That’s not me saying, “Oh, policing used to be great.” No, I understand there were always problems with policing. But we’re one of the most violent cities in America. And all the discourse about abolish the police or defund the police — I’d be happy to defund the drug war. I’d be happy to change the mission, but I don’t want to defund the police. Good police work is necessary and elemental, or my city becomes untenable. I’ve seen case work done right, and I’ve seen case work done wrong, and it matters.BURNS I’m sorry [Baltimore] was labeled the city of “The Wire,” because we could’ve taken that show into any city, in exactly the same way. Akron, Ohio, would have suddenly become the “Wire” city. So it’s a shame that it was pushed onto this little town.From left, Clark Johnson, Brandon Young, Michelle Paress and Tom McCarthy in the final season, which criticized “the media culture that could allow the previous four seasons to go on and never actually attend to any of the systemic problems,” Simon said.Paul Schiraldi/HBOWould “The Wire” be greenlighted if you pitched it today?BURNS No, definitely not. HBO was going up the ladder at the time. They didn’t understand “The Wire” until the fourth season. In fact, they were thinking about canceling it after three. We caught that moment where networks were thinking, “Oh, we need a show for this group of people.”But now, it’s got to be “Game of Thrones.” It’s got to be big. It’s got to be disconnected from stepping on anybody’s toes. I’ve watched a couple of the limited series on HBO, and they’re good shows, but they’re not cutting new paths. They are whodunits or these rich women bickering among themselves in a town. I don’t see anybody saying, “Hey, that’s a really great show.”SIMON No, because we didn’t attend, in any real way, to the idea of diversity in the writers’ room. I tried to get Dave Mills, who had been my friend since college, to work on “The Wire.” But that would have been organic. It was just a friend; it wasn’t even about Black and white. But other than David, who did a couple scripts for us, and Kia Corthron, the playwright, did one, we were really inattentive to diversity. That wasn’t forward thinking.Why were we inattentive? Because it was so organic to what I’d covered and what Ed had policed. And then, I started bringing on novelists. The first guy was George Pelecanos, whose books about D.C. were the same stuff I was covering. And I happened to read his books, and I was like, “This guy probably could write what we’re trying to do.” And then he said: “Look, you’re trying to make novels. Every season’s a novel. We should hire novelists.” And so we went and got Price. If I had it to do over again, I would have to look at [the diversity of the creative team] in the same way that I looked at later productions.In retrospect, is there anything else that you wish that the show had done differently?BURNS I wish that Season 5 took a different direction, as far as the newsroom was concerned, and didn’t debase the idea of investigation. But it’s fine. What we tried to get across is that the kids that we saw in [Season 4] were becoming, as they approached adulthood, the guys that we saw in [Seasons] 1, 2, 3 and 4. It was continuous. This is just the next generation.“We were fast becoming a culture that didn’t even recognize its own problems, much less solve any of them,” Simon said. “So it felt like, ‘Let’s make a show about this.’”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesOther than the fact that the issues it highlighted are still prevalent, why do you think “The Wire” has such staying power?SIMON Nothing’s in a vacuum. I would credit “Oz” for showing me that there was this network out there that would tell a dark story and tell an adult story. “Homicide” [Simon’s first book] had been made into a TV show. But with “The Corner” [Burns and Simon’s nonfiction book centered on a West Baltimore drug market], I was like: “The rights are worth nothing. Nobody’s going to put that on American television.” And then I saw “Oz,” and so that was the moment where I looked at HBO and said, “Oh, would you like to make a mini-series about a drug-saturated neighborhood and about the drug war?”And then the other places we stole from: We stole from the Greek tragedies, the idea that the institutions were the gods and they were bigger than the people. So, thanks to the college course that made me read Greek plays. Thanks to “Paths of Glory,” which was a movie about institutional imperative, the [Stanley] Kubrick film — I took stuff liberally from there. Thanks to a bunch of novelists, Pelecanos, Price, [Dennis] Lehane, who decided they were willing to write television. Obviously, the cast and crew and everyone.But it was a show that was ready for where TV was going to end up, and that’s where a lot of luck is involved. The idea that you flick on your TV screen and decide you want to watch something that was made 10 years earlier or has just been posted; or you’ll wait until there are enough episodes to binge watch it; or you have insomnia, so you’ll watch four hours of a mini-series and just acquire it whenever the hell you want — boy, I didn’t see that coming.BURNS It’s like a western: It’s mired in legend. But the legend is actually reality. Today, 20 years ago, 20 years from now — it’s the same thing. And each generation coming up, each bunch of kids coming up, discover it and inject more life into it. More

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      Tributes to Michael K. Williams, Actor Who Gave ‘Voice to the Human Condition’

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      From co-stars of “The Wire” to musicians and authors, many took to social media on Monday to share their thoughts about the actor.Fans, actors and celebrities took to social media to share their condolences for Michael K. Williams, the actor best known for his role as Omar Little in the HBO series “The Wire,” who was found dead in his home on Monday.Mr. Williams, who was 54, starred in a number of movies and TV shows, including “Boardwalk Empire,” “Lovecraft Country” and “Bringing Out the Dead.” Many of his co-stars from “The Wire” were quick on Monday to share their thoughts about the actor.“The depth of my love for this brother, can only be matched by the depth of my pain learning of his loss,” Wendell Pierce, who starred on the show as Detective William (Bunk) Moreland, said on Twitter. “A immensely talented man with the ability to give voice to the human condition portraying the lives of those whose humanity is seldom elevated until he sings their truth.”If you don’t know, you better ask somebody. His name was Michael K. Williams. He shared with me his secret fears then stepped out into his acting with true courage, acting in the face of fear, not in the absence of it. It took me years to learn what Michael had in abundance. pic.twitter.com/BIkoPPrPzg— Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) September 6, 2021
      In a series of posts on Twitter, Mr. Pierce described his relationship with the actor, adding that they had grown close through the show.“He shared with me his secret fears then stepped out into his acting with true courage, acting in the face of fear, not in the absence of it,” Mr. Pierce said. “It took me years to learn what Michael had in abundance.”Domenick Lombardozzi, who also starred on “The Wire,” described Mr. Williams on Twitter as kind, fair, gentle and talented.“I’ll cherish our talks and I’ll miss him tremendously,” he said. “Rest my friend.”Isiah Whitlock Jr., who also starred in “The Wire,” said on Twitter that he was “shocked and saddened” by the death of Mr. Williams.“One of the nicest brothers on the planet with the biggest heart,” he said. “An amazing actor and soul.”David Simon, the creator of the “The Wire,” initially chose not to share words about the actor, opting instead to post a portrait of Mr. Williams on Twitter.Later, Mr. Simon posted on Twitter that he was “too gutted right now to say all that ought to be said.”“Michael was a fine man and a rare talent and on our journey together he always deserved the best words,” he said. “And today those words won’t come.”HBO said on Twitter that the death of Mr. Williams is an “immeasurable loss.”“While the world knew of his immense talents, we knew Michael as a dear friend,” the network said.Ahmir Khalib Thompson, the musician known as Questlove, said on Twitter that he could not “take this pain.”“Please God No,” the musician said. “Death cannot be this normal.”The death of Mr. Williams also drew attention from others on social media, including the author Stephen King.“Horrible, sad, and unbelievable to think we’ve lost the fantastically talented Michael K. Williams at the age of 54,” the author said on Twitter.The Screen Actors Guild Awards said on Twitter that it mourned the loss of Mr. Williams.“We will always remember him and his ability to impact people’s lives through his powerful performances,” it said. More

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      Michael K. Williams, Omar From 'The Wire,' Is Dead at 54

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      Mr. Williams, who also starred in “Boardwalk Empire” and “Lovecraft Country,” was best known for his role as Omar Little in the David Simon HBO series.Michael K. Williams, the actor best known for his role as Omar Little, a stickup man with a sharp wit and a sawed-off shotgun in the HBO series “The Wire,” was found dead on Monday in his home in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the police said. He was 54.Mr. Williams was found at about 2 p.m., according to the New York City Police Department. The death is being investigated, and the city’s medical examiner will determine the cause.His longtime representative, Marianna Shafran, confirmed the death in a statement and said the family was grappling with “deep sorrow” at “this insurmountable loss.”Mr. Williams grew up in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he said he had never envisioned a life outside the borough. But before he was 30, he had parlayed his love for dance into dancing roles with the singers George Michael and Madonna, and then landed his first acting opportunity with another artist, Tupac Shakur.Within a few years, he appeared in more roles, including as a drug dealer in the movie “Bringing Out the Dead,” which was directed by Martin Scorsese. Then in 2002 came “The Wire,” David Simon’s five-season epic on HBO that explored the gritty underworld of corruption, drugs and the police in Baltimore.Mr. Williams as Omar Little in “The Wire,” a groundbreaking portrayal of a gay Black man on television. HBOMr. Williams played Omar Little, a charming vigilante who held up low-level drug dealers, perhaps the most memorable character on a series many consider among the best shows in television history. Omar was gay and openly so in the homophobic, coldblooded world of murder and drugs, a groundbreaking portrayal of a gay Black man on television.Off camera, however, Mr. Williams’s life was often in disarray. He wasted his earnings from “The Wire” on drugs, a spiral that led him to living out of a suitcase on the floor of a house in Newark, an experience he described with candor in an article that appeared on nj.com in 2012.He finished filming the series with support from his church in Newark, but the drug addiction stayed. In 2008, he had a moment of clarity at a presidential rally for Barack Obama in Pennsylvania. With Mr. Williams in the crowd with his mother, Mr. Obama remarked that “The Wire” was the best show on television and that Omar Little was his favorite character.They met afterward, but Mr. Williams, who was high, could barely speak. “Hearing my name come out of his mouth woke me up,” Mr. Williams told The New York Times in 2017. “I realized that my work could actually make a difference.”Mr. Williams received five Emmy Award nominations, including one in the upcoming Primetime Emmy Awards this month. He was nominated this year for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for his portrayal of Montrose Freeman on the HBO show “Lovecraft Country.”Mr. Williams as Montrose Freeman in “Lovecraft Country.”HBO, via Associated PressMichael Kenneth Williams was born Nov. 22, 1966. His mother immigrated from the Bahamas, worked as a seamstress and later operated a day care center out of the Vanderveer Estates, the public housing complex now known as Flatbush Gardens where the family lived in Brooklyn. His parents separated when he was young.When Mr. Williams was cast as Omar in “The Wire,” he returned to Vanderveer Estates to hone his role, drawing on the figures and experiences he had grown up with, he told The Times in 2017.“The way a lot of us from the neighborhood see it, Mike is like the prophet of the projects,” Darrel Wilds, 50, who grew up with Mr. Williams in Vanderveer, told The Times. “He’s representing the people of this neighborhood to the world.”Noah Remnick More

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      Isiah Whitlock Jr., on Leaving Chelsea for Gramercy Park

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat I LoveIsiah Whitlock Jr., on Leaving Chelsea for Gramercy ParkThe actor, known for starring roles on shows like “Your Honor” and “The Wire,” has a new apartment — with a key to the park.Isiah Whitlock Jr.: ‘You’ve Got to Live in a Place You Love’14 PhotosView Slide Show ›Katherine Marks for The New York TimesJan. 19, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETIsiah Whitlock Jr. lived in Chelsea before Chelsea was trendy.“I was looking for an apartment in New York, and I sort of had my choice of Chelsea or Harlem, and I really couldn’t see my girlfriend in Harlem,” he said. “So we chose Chelsea, which at the time was a little bit of a terrifying neighborhood.”Mr. Whitlock, 66, is one of the stars of the new Showtime mini-series “Your Honor,” but is perhaps best known for playing the corrupt state senator Clay Davis on “The Wire.” He has also appeared in films like “Cedar Rapids,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods.” Twenty or so years ago, he was an emerging actor who got a sweet deal on a duplex a few blocks from the meatpacking district, with two bedrooms and a working fireplace. He put his own stamp on it — Flokati rug and beanbag chairs — after his girlfriend moved out. A few years later, the landlord suggested it was time for Mr. Whitlock to vacate the premises, too, but framed the request in a more flattering manner.Mr. Whitlock’s sectional sofa arrived in the reverse configuration from what he was expecting. In time, he has come to view it as a fortunate mistake. “This way, it really opens up the room.”Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York Times“One day she told me in passing, ‘You know, I really don’t want you becoming famous, because I don’t want tour buses pulling up in front of the house,’” Mr. Whitlock said. “I thought it was sort of a joke, but she wasn’t laughing.”“I never did get a solid reason,” he added. “I suspected she wanted a lot more money. I could have paid more, but she wanted me gone.”Isiah Whitlock, 66Occupation: ActorHome sweet home: “As an actor, you’re out and about and meeting all kinds of people, and it’s nice to be able to come home and shut the door and kind of chill.”Mr. Whitlock decamped to a gloomy walk-up nearby. “It was so dark I sometimes had to go outside and take a walk to wake up,” he recalled. “I would say to myself, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and then I’d get a job and be gone for three months. And then I’d get another job and be gone again.” Finally — perhaps it was when intruders started stealing tenants’ mail and packages — he’d had enough.Last August, friends sublet him their one-bedroom apartment in a postwar Gramercy Park co-op, with a rooftop terrace and a coveted key to the park. “And if my friends are nice to me, they can come in with me,” Mr. Whitlock said. This is his first doorman building and his first elevator building.“I sort of had a long talk with myself and said, ‘You know, it’s time for you to grow up and stop living the way you’ve been living,’” he said. “When I was working so much and was barely home, it was sort of out of sight, out of mind. But with Covid, I really need to be in a place I enjoy.” He said he intends to buy an apartment when the sublet is up — in fact, was in talks to buy on the Upper East Side last spring, but the pandemic put everything on ice.“It’s beautiful,” Mr. Whitlock said of his poster of Bill Pickett, credited with being the first Black cowboy star. Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York TimesThe company he hired to pack and move his worldly goods did a poor job of it, Mr. Whitlock said, necessitating the replacement of several pieces of furniture. Fortunately, a number of treasures arrived intact, including a Robert Rauschenberg silk-screen on mirror-coated plexiglass, part of the “Star Quarters” series; the framed front page of the final edition of the Village Voice; a poster of Bill Pickett, known as the first African-American cowboy star (“It’s a beautiful poster, one of the best things I have in the house”); and a photo of a somewhat younger, somewhat trimmer Mr. Whitlock.“That’s my band. I used to be in a band,” he said, by way of explaining the picture. “And believe it or not, the guy in the white jumpsuit — that’s me. I didn’t play an instrument. I just sang and danced and drove the girls wild.”The movers were also mindful of the cuckoo clock Mr. Whitlock bought in Germany; the wood box containing the trinkets he collected during his two trips to Burning Man; and the framed, signed sheet music of a song composed by Arthur Miller for the 1997 Off Broadway production of Miller’s play “The American Clock.” (Mr. Whitlock was a member of the cast.)He ordered a tufted, L-shaped teal sectional online, but when it arrived the configuration was the reverse of what he’d expected. In time, he has come to view the purchase as a fortunate mistake. “This way, it really opens up the room,” said Mr. Whitlock, who lined the sofa with a row of pillows he bought in Vietnam and Thailand while shooting “Da 5 Bloods.” The television sits atop a new credenza made of honey-colored wood. His beloved shag rug pulls it all together.The work by Robert Rauschenberg hanging over the dining table “is like the center of the apartment,” he said.Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York TimesA serious cook, he hung a pot rack in the kitchen. But you’d be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Whitlock maybe cares a bit more about drink than food. He proudly showed off the half dozen hand-painted coffee cups and saucers he had specially made during a trip to Deruta, Italy.Even more proudly, he offered a tour of the 200-bottle, glass-fronted wine cooler. Harlan Estate, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Latour and Chateau d’Yquem are among the vineyards represented here, with Dom Pérignon at the ready for celebrating when the pandemic is finally over. There are also several bottles of vintage Whitlock, made by you-know-who at a fully equipped site in New Jersey, with grapes from Napa Valley.“You know, as a matter of fact, I think I’ll just take that out and have it tonight,” he said of a 2014 Cabernet Whitlock. “Trust me, I’ve got a lot of it.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More