An Evening with the Cast of The Wire

Last night I went to An Evening with the Cast of The Wire at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Professor Charles Ogletree will be teaching a course on The Wire next spring and many criminal justice experts and Wire actors will be attending the class and special public sessions. Professor Bill Wilson is currently teaching an undergraduate class on The Wire and was also there. He wrote a recent article, Why we're teaching 'The Wire' at Harvard.

"Of course, our undergraduate students will read rigorous academic studies of the urban job market, education and the drug war. But the HBO series does what these texts can't. More than simply telling a gripping story, "The Wire" shows how the deep inequality in inner-city America results from the web of lost jobs, bad schools, drugs, imprisonment, and how the situation feeds on itself. Those kinds of connections are very difficult to illustrate in academic works. Though scholars know that deindustrialization, crime and prison, and the education system are deeply intertwined, they must often give focused attention to just one subject in relative isolation, at the expense of others. With the freedom of artistic expression, "The Wire" can be more creative. It can weave together the range of forces that shape the lives of the urban poor."

Attending last night were Donnie Andrews, the real-life inspiration for the Omar character, Jamie Hector, who played Marlo Stanfield, and Michael K. Williams who played Omar Little (who I learned was Obama's favorite character on the show). All three are now involved in programs to help inner city kids.



Andrews said he still lives in Baltimore, though now in the county not the city. When The Wire premiered he was in federal prison. His wife watched the show and told him the Omar character must be based on him (he robbed drug dealers). He got out and ultimately had a small role on the show. He says The Wire is real depiction of the streets but it's watered down and of the course the characters are often composites. One of the best scenes was when Wallace was killed (in the first season) by his friends. These people don't value money as much as time, because death can come at any time. Andrews said he killed people but didn't know why and was disturbed when he found out in one case it was because someone stepped on his boss' foot.

He works in a law school now. When he asks academics "Why murder?" he gets the answers for money or power or territory. When he asks the kids he works with, their answer is "Why not murder?" There's all this crime but they can't call police; they only come later, to clean up. He said at 13 had $100,000 in a shoebox under his bed. I wondered if that wasn't enough to allow him to get out of the environment, what would have been.

Something that struck me was how both Hector and Williams really seemed like Marlo and Omar. Certainly not their actions, but their voices and walks and mannerisms. They put a lot of themselves into the roles. It's not easy being yourself on camera and both of these actors apparently did it very well.

Someone asked a question that really surprised me. He said a lot of the characters in the show had relationships with animals, one example being Marlo and the pigeons. It turns out it was deliberate and that many of these people have weak relationships with people and prefer animals because they don't want anything from them.

Both Jamie and Michael talked about how they approached their characters and how people talk to them about them. The general thing I took away is that most people seem to have a great deal of respect for these criminals. Jamie described Marlo as a sociopath though also disciplined. "He's kinda ruthless...kinda." He said his kids (which I think meant the kids he works with) thought of Marlo more as a successful businessman than a murderer. He's trying to teach them that we don't respect pedophiles even if they're good at it, we shouldn't respect drug dealers even if they pay the mortgage. As an actor, he worked with the writers to develop Marlo's background. in season 4, when they introduced Michael, it turns out that's basically the story Jamie had come up with for Marlo.

As a young actor, Omar required Williams to go to a really dark place. it was his first recurring role so he had to go there over and over again. He said after a few seasons he really got lost in the character of Omar and drugs and alcohol didn't help. He started answering more to Omar than to Michael. Finally he got sober and things are going better.

*Spoiler for season 3*

Michael Williams said there was only one scene in The Wire he had a problem filming, killing Stringer Bell. First the obvious thing was that his co-worker was losing his job. But also, he didn't want to be involved with this black-on-black crime. They were two smart black men, why do they have to kill each other? How does that help the black community? He tried to avoid Idris Elba that day, but ended up in hair and makeup together. Williams started to cry.