The Wire cast pay their bills
Posted by Archie Valparaiso on 24 March 2008 - 10:24am.
After watching four seasons of The Wire, I've come to associate the actors so much with their roles that seeing them in anything else is - to put it mildly - a bit strange.
Morris Levy - from sleazebag lawyer to sex symbol:
Bill Rawls gets one bill too many:
Cedric Daniels talks up some R&B:
It's O.M.A.R. Blue (and for a dash of extra weirdness, check out who his partner is):
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No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Idris Elba, the mighty Stringer Bell, appeared last night in this programme. He had a small but significant role, and played a bad man, as bad as String. Possibly even worse.
I'm surprised you omitted
I'm surprised you omitted Omar's most famous non-Wire appearance - in R Kelly's hip hopera masterpiece "Trapped In The Closet":
Pre-Wire
Have you watched The Corner? It's the mini-series based on the the book of the same name by David Simon and Ed Burns, who of course went on to write The Wire. People who play good guys in the latter play bad guys in the former. It's very confusing.
How grim is it?
I've read the book and it's brilliant reportage, but the grimness barely lets up. I've been a bit reticent to order the DVD because I'm not sure I could take six hours of Bubblesesque sad stuff and parentless kids without a bit of light relief from some Clay Davis and Prop Joe equivalents now and again. In other words, I fear the mini-series may be a bit too "Ken Loach Goes To Baltimore". Yes? No?
By the way, to add to your confusion: Lamar, Brother Mouzone's "viscerally homophobic" gofer in The Wire, was played by the real DeAndre McCullough.
It's grim.
You only ever see the addicts' side of the story - the story never broadens out in the way the The Wire does. And visually speaking, it's certainly bleaker - Baltimore looks post-apocalyptic, everything broken, and the physical damage that drugs do to the body is shown in all its gory detail.