The prolific actor who radiated authority
Lance Reddick 1962–2023
Even in ensembles brimming with talent, Lance Reddick stood out. He specialized in authority figures, whether it was principled but world-weary narcotics detective Cedric Daniels in the celebrated HBO drama The Wire, the mysterious Matthew Abaddon in Lost, special agent Phillip Broyles in the Fox sci-fi series Fringe, or LAPD Commissioner Irvin Irving in Amazon’s Bosch. With ramrod-straight posture, finely sculpted cheekbones, and a sonorous baritone that lent his every utterance gravitas, he had an effortlessly magisterial onscreen presence. “Intensity is not something I try to do,” he said in a 2010 interview. “It’s just kind of the way that I am.”
The Baltimore-raised son of a music teacher and a public defender, Reddick trained as a pianist and “was initially headed for a life in music,” said Rolling Stone. But after “he struggled to find purchase” in that field, he turned to acting, unexpectedly winning admission to the Yale School of Drama at age 29. He started out in the 1990s in bit parts on shows such as The Nanny and The West Wing. After a six-episode arc on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a medical examiner, he landed “his big breakthrough” on The Wire. He appeared in every episode of that series, from 2002 to 2008, imbuing the role of Lt. Daniels with “such obvious dignity and humanity” that the character became the show’s moral center. When offered another cop part in Bosch, Reddick “initially resisted it as typecasting,” said The Wall Street Journal. But
Irvin Irving, the chief antagonist to Los Angeles homicide detective Harry Bosch, would prove to be a touchstone role, and he played it over seven seasons, from 2014 to 2021.
Reddick finally “got away from law-enforcement roles in the John Wick movies,” said The New York Times. As the unflappable, Kenyan-accented concierge of a New York City hotel for assassins, he was the “soul of discretion” as he provided assistance to Keanu Reeves’ titular hitman in the 2014 original and its sequels. And he’ll appear posthumously as Zeus in Disney’s forthcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He had always sought to expand his range. “Because I was a Black man and I wasn’t pretty,” he said, “I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.”