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Michael K. Williams Is More Than Omar from ‘The Wire’
- throwaway91111 9y agoSalient: "Michael K Williams asks: Am I typecast?" https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA https://youtu.be/STkh15nZ1uA
- LeoNatan25 9y agoThis was beautiful! Thank you!
- slg 9y agoI would strongly recommend Michael K. Williams' interview on NPR's Bullseye. It is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyXxGgz__Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyXxGgz__Y
- _asummers 9y agoThat was an excellent listen, thanks for the link!
- sotojuan 9y agoHe was great in Boardwalk Empire!
- LeoNatan25 9y agoI can't think of any of his performances that have been weak (performance-wise).
- Zeebrommer 9y ago"I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"
- honestoHeminway 9y agoHey yo. Hey yo. You all need to open this door, man, before I huff and puff. Come on, now, by the hairs of your chinny-chin-chin.
- cbanek 9y agoAlso the unofficial spokesman for honey nut cheerios.
- Nexxxeh 9y agoHe's excellent as expected in "Hap and Leonard" with James Purefoy. It's on Sundance TV in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK. Two seasons with a third already commissioned. >Set in the late 1980's, Hap and Leonard is a darkly comic swamp noir of two best friends, one femme fatale, a crew of washed up revolutionaries, a pair of murderous psycho killers, some lost loot, and the fuzz.
- tootie 9y ago"he was on a three-day-long bender when his mother brought him to a rally for Barack Obama in Harrisburg, Pa. Earlier during his campaign, Mr. Obama had declared “The Wire” the best show on television and Omar his favorite character. When the two men met privately after the event, Mr. Williams, lock-jawed and high on cocaine, could barely speak." Damn.
- nafizh 9y ago15 years of The Wire. Nothing has changed. Goes perfectly with the ethos of the show, at the end, nothing changes.
- bmelton 9y agoEnamored with David Simon's work, I picked up the DVD box set of "Homicide: Life on the Street", which I'd heard of before, but didn't have an attachment to. After seeing The Wire, then Treme (which took me a long time to adjust to not being The Wire, but may actually be even better) and then Show Me A Hero, it's fair to say that Davis Simon is just a brilliant writer. Anyway, that was kind of a tangent to get to the real point, which is that Homicide, filmed a decade earlier than the Wire, highlighted many of the same troubles that The Wire did. Perhaps as the result of being based on the same (or similar) works, but if Homicide was authentic (and I believe it was) and the Wire was authentic (which I also believe), then it seems that Baltimore's had problems for some time. I work in Baltimore now, and get to see some of the areas The Wire was filmed in enough to see that they've made real progress in certain areas, but on the whole, but Baltimore tends to do a good job of holding a spot in the top 10 of "most dangerous cities" lists year to year.
- krrrh 9y ago> it's fair to say that Davis Simon is just a brilliant writer. Don't forget to check out Generation Kill, which was co-written with Ed Burns with whom he also worked on The Wire and The Corner.
- bmelton 9y agoI've seen Generation Kill multiple times, and regard it as exceptional, though I wasn't aware of Simon's involvement.
- mercer 9y agoSimon is all over that. i knew before I watched it, and while it's nothing like The Wire, it feels similarly honest. The best criticism of the show I've found (and I really look for that type of stuff) mostly seems to be relatively benign. If someone can direct me to more substantial disagreement, I'd love to know. But so far I've been a little surprised at how little has been written against the depiction of Generation Killl.
- dajohnson89 9y agoHe also has a documentary series on Viceland, called black market. Very good look into illegal underworlds.
- endswapper 9y ago"Omar's coming!"
- ruminasean 9y agoNot to be a pedant, but one of the best things about The Wire is the language..."Omar comin!" or "knockos" instead of "narcos" (narco cops) or "Hamsterdam," a mishearing of "Amsterdam."
- c17r 9y agoI saw an article that said the UK audience required a Rosetta Stone for the Baltimore street talk, both words and accents.
- DanBC 9y agoThey didn't. In general people in the UK can understand most Americans. People in the US are fucking baffled when they hear someone from the UK say "herb" or "water".
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoI was under the impression that the dense use of language was an intentional artistic choice. To give a non-"street" example, one character makes a comment about working a "ro-ro" which I happen to know is a "Roll-on, Roll-off car ferry". But I guess the average viewer isn't supposed to know that, just to absorb the authenticity as a background texture.
- dylan604 9y ago"Omar walking!"
- balls187 9y agoThere are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about Omar is that he doesn't curse. In a profane and violent world, he has a code, which he upholds. IIRC, MKWilliams was the one who insisted that Omar not curse.
- ttoinou 9y agoThere are not many shows taht are better than the Wire Oz ?
- spenuke 9y agoNot even close. The only contender is Deadwood (RIP).
- tomjakubowski 9y agoSurely The Sopranos is a contender as well. In my mind those three occupy a tier above all other television dramas.
- _asummers 9y agoSopranos is in the tier JUST immediately below The Wire and Breaking Bad, for me. Amazing TV, but not quite at that extra-elite level. I have not yet watched Deadwood, and judging from these discussions, I should.
- yannickt 9y agoI would count both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad as contenders, personally.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jancsika 9y agoI think the Wire excelled at a more difficult game because the writing adhered to a kind of journalistic dogma that didn't allow for many of the tricks used in the storytelling of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Walt could blow up a room and not only survive, but convince a psychopathic drug dealer to do business with him by that very act. Tony Soprano could garner empathy and understanding by showing us his dream sequences. But The Wire gave its audience only what its characters said and did. Characters who-- by and large-- couldn't just "problem solve" their way out of their circumstances like Walt did so often.
- balls187 9y agoIf you've not seen the Wire, this article contains major spoilers.
- kelvin0 9y agoBest.Show.Ever. Nuance, layers, intricacies and Macro/Micro views on Baltimore pictures in a realistic and coherent whole. I will never know these microcosm, but for 5 years I felt I was part of them.
- escapetech 9y agoIn light of the "All Eyez on Me" movie recently released, there is an interesting, indirect relationship between Michael K Williams and Tupac Shakur. Shakur was filming with Mickey Rourke for 1996 release Bullet (actually filmed in 1994), and Williams was specifically chosen for a role by Shakur because of his facial scar. William's manager at the time was James Rosemond who is currently incarcerated with several life terms. Rosemond was a childhood friend of Michael Williams, and grew up in the same area of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, near the Vandeveer housing projects (now called Flatbush Gardens), and became heavily involved in street crimes as a teenager, allegedly robbing drug dealers like in the Wire. Fast forwarding to the early 90's, a number executives in the urban music industry had indirect/direct ties with street crime and gang culture, and Rosemond, who became Michael K William's manager, was believed to be one of them (he also managed several popular urban music groups at the time). It's widely believed by industry insiders that Rosemond wanted to become Shakur's manager as well, but Shakur wasn't interested. Also, much of Shakur's problems (the 1994 shooting and imprisonment) are believed by many to be of the doing of either Rosemond or his acquaintances. It would be interesting to know how much Omar's character was influenced by his friendship with Rosemond and people from the neighborhood they both knew.
- unclebucknasty 9y agoA lot of the show was inspired by real events and real people, including the experiences and true character of some of the actors. One of the most interesting to me was Melvin Williams who played The Deacon, and in real life was a big-time heroin kingpin who was renowned for his intelligence. There's a decent documentary about him floating around and a (short) Wikipedia page [0]. Another is Felicia Pearson who played Snoop. Listen to an interview with her and hear her backstory, and you know she's the real deal. Stephen King called her character "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series". [1] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_(actor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Williams_(actor) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_(The_Wire) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_(The_Wire)