Black actors look back at ‘The Wire’

When HBO’s heralded series “The Wire” went off the air 10 years ago, it wasn’t immediately clear that it would be a launching pad for much of the ensemble.

Sure, the show had been hailed as one of the greatest television dramas ever, and it launched series regulars Idris Elba (Russell “Stringer” Bell) and, less directly, Michael B. Jordan (Wallace) to stardom while making names for other cast members, including Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty), Michael K. Williams (Omar Little), Wendell Pierce (William “Bunk” Moreland) and Clarke Peters (Lester Freamon).

But the intense fiveseason drama set in innercity Baltimore did not provide the instant spark that some actors expected, says Lance Reddick, who played the impressive and intimidating police commander Cedric Daniels. It was only over time, as the show’s stature grew, some actors say, that it truly rewrote the arc of their careers.

Anwan Glover, who played the low-key gangster Slim Charles, says after the series finale “the largest African-American cast ever” was looking for jobs in a world “without enough roles for us.”

“I thought I’d made it, easy breezy, and my career was about to take flight,” says Chad L. Coleman, who played reformed gangbanger Dennis “Cutty” Wise. “But with that many people of color in the cast, not everyone was going to get off the runway.”

Additionally, creator David Simon’s masterpiece was more acclaimed than popular; its most successful season averaged well less than half the peak popularity of HBO shows like “The Sopranos,” “Game of Thrones” or “True Blood.” In fact, the show’s popularity grew after the last episode in March 2008 as viewers belatedly discovered it on demand.

“It’s inverse to normal with the show’s popularity growing after it went off the air,” Reddick says. “It’s a weird phenomenon.”

Even as its audience and reputation continued growing, pitfalls remained. Some Hollywood writers and producers were misled by the show’s unnerving street-level authenticity and the casting of locals with more of a criminal history than an acting resume (such as Felicia “Snoop” Pearson or Melvin Williams, who played the Deacon and inspired the Avon Barksdale character, who was, in turn, portrayed by Wood Harris).

“It was so authentic, people thought we weren’t actors,” says Gbenga Akinnagbe, who played efficient killer Chris Partlow. “At industry events, people would ask, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I’d say, ‘What do you mean?’ And they’d say, ‘What are you doing out of Baltimore?’ ”

Jamie Hector, who played the ruthless drug lord Marlo Stansfield, felt like he needed to mention in meetings that he’s a Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute alumnus so people would know he was a legitimate actor. Hector was often typecast afterward as a bad guy; he says that happened before “The Wire” too, and that’s what is too often offered to African-American actors.

But he’s philosophical about it. “I’d rather be pigeonholed than noholed,” he says. “At least I was working.”

Before “The Wire,” Reddick had played a crackhead on Simon’s “The Corner” and a heroin addict on “Oz” but also a cop and a medical examiner in other recurring roles.

Doing shows after “The Wire” was like a theater actor doing a play after “Hamlet.”

“I’d find myself on the set of a show feeling down, and I didn’t know why,” Akinnagbe says. “It took a while till I realized I have to accept that not all work is the same and I have to find something interesting in each character. With ‘The Wire,’ we were thrilled every week. We’d read the script immediately and call each other to say, ‘Did you see that?’ ”

Seth Gilliam, who played Detective Ellis Carver, was braced for that. “I watch TV, so I didn’t have highfalutin ideas about the quality of other shows,” he says. “But I wasn’t in a position to say ‘no.’ ”

While actors need to work, Hector says, “The Wire” did prompt him to “stand outside the game a little further and ask, ‘Is this character one-dimensional?’ ” and push for more nuanced roles.

“The creators of both ‘Teen Wolf ’ and ‘The Walking Dead’ were fans of ‘The Wire,’ ” Gilliam says of his two most recent series.

The most important connections for the cast were, of course, Simon and “Wire” writer-producers such as Eric Overmyer, who created “Treme” for HBO with Simon, and George Pelecanos, who worked with Simon on “Treme” and co-created HBO’s “The Deuce.” Overmyer gave Hector a chance to move beyond the villain roles with a leading role as a detective on the Amazon series “Bosch.”

Simon’s series have been a bounty: “Treme” starred Pierce and Peters, with roles for Glover, Jim TrueFrost, James Ransone and Steve Earle, while “The Deuce” has featured Akinnagbe, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Glover and other “Wire” regulars Method Man, Chris Bauer and Michael Kostroff.

More important than that connection, Akinnagbe and Hector say, is the way “The Wire” changed perceptions. “It forced people to see that we really can act and should be allowed to play different roles and to tell nuanced stories,” Hector says.

“It took a while,” Akinnagbe says, “but the show definitely influenced a whole generation of TV and film writers who now write deeper and more complex characters.”