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On June 10, 2011, shortly after the first season of the HBO drama series Boardwalk Empire finished rolling out, journalist Scott Feinberg — who would join The Hollywood Reporter later that year — met up at the Five Leaves Diner in Brooklyn with one of the stars of the show, Michael Kenneth Williams. Their raw hourlong conversation touched upon Williams’ “turbulent” childhood, the incident on his 25th birthday that left him with his facial scar, his struggles with drugs, how acting saved him, how he would like to be remembered and more. Ten years later, on the tragic occasion of Williams’ death, a lightly edited transcript of that conversation is being reprinted here.
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First of all, I have to tell you that a lot of your work is very fresh in my mind — I only recently watched The Wire, but I watched every episode of Boardwalk Empire when it first aired — and I think you are the coolest. I was just saying to someone the other day that I think you’re like the Black Steve McQueen.
(Laughs.) Thank you.
No, thank you! So, getting down to business, where were you born and raised? And what sort of a childhood did you have? In another interview that you gave, you called it “turbulent” — what does that mean?
(Laughs.) Exactly what it means, “turbulent” — a lot of ups and downs, a lot of bumps in the road. I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, in the projects named Vanderveer, and it was a very turbulent time to grow up in that neighborhood. It was a West Indies and Caribbean mixture; you had a Jewish community surrounding it; and that just made for a lot of violence, a lot of bloodshed. And I grew up as a child who — in my household, my mother was the thug — you know, she didn’t play certain things, and certain things were not allowed in our house, you know? So I grew up pretty much as a “stoop kid,” to reference The Wire, you know? And I had friends who I still love and speak to today who became “corner boys,” and who would become notorious. But I knew that I had no business crossing that line ’cause those streets would’a ate me up. Not that I thought I was better; I knew I could not survive that. So my thing was I became a party kid — you know, complete with “party favors” and everything (laughs) — and that was my thing, you know, and that, kind of, was my demise, in a sense.
From what I understand, you eventually got a job at Pfizer, you started taking business classes at BMCC, and then you experienced something of a turning point.
(Laughs.) You know, I tried to get my life together to make my mom happy, you know, and stop worrying. I went to school, got a gig and boom, here comes Janet Jackson, you know what I mean? She had released the “Rhythm Nation” project and, you know, it was … aside from me growing up with her and her music, I just found that I could identify with it because of the message — everybody was dressed in black, and militant, it was in unison, it was family, kind of gangsta, in a sense, you know? And I identified with the young man that was running around in that dark, abandoned warehouse trying to find himself, trying to find his way out. I was like, “That’s me!” You know what I’m sayin’? I was like, “Janet, come save me!” (Laughs.) You know? I always had a flair for dance and music — if I was at a party, I’d be the one with the new dance steps (dances a bit in his seat), and everybody was watching me dance, and that was my thing. And when I saw that, I realized — I got this light bulb — that I could earn a living, or I could pursue the possibility of earning a living, dancing. And I quit school, I quit my job, and I went on a quest to find Janet. (Laughs.)
My understanding is that, not long after seeing that Janet Jackson music video, you experienced a couple of crazy events in your life …
Right before I saw that video, it seemed like I was starting to grow up, and then here I come with this hair-brained scheme. Needless to say, my family was very disappointed in me, but something just said, “Give this a shot! This is my chance to find my identity, what I want to do.” ’Cause I was only doing [the job at Pfizer] to make my family happy, you know? But I had still had a knack for stepping in huge turds of shit, you know? I still had this way of finding trouble. I was, like, 22 goin’ on 23 when I decided to become a dancer, which is very late in life, and by my 25th birthday I had three (pauses for a moment to think) — I had one, two — two grand-theft auto charges, and a buck-fifty down my face [slang for a large cut or scar across the face, caused by a blade or razor and requiring 150 stitches, hence the term], and a happy face [slang for a large cut or scar across the underside of the face or neck, caused by a blade or razor], you know? (Laughs.) All by the age of 25, you know? So, you know, I thought that something was definitely wrong. Shit started spiraling out of control and going in the wrong direction again — something I was very familiar with. You know, I don’t want to paint myself as a “bad boy,” in that sense; I was really the corniest dude you ever wanted to see — nerd; I would do anything to avoid confrontation; I was not a fighter, you know? (Laughs.) But I had a way of always finding myself in trouble — like, big trouble, you know what I’m saying? (Laughs.) And this was that starting to stir up all over again. And that was probably the second time that I thought I was gonna die. About age 25, I had two very strong feelings that I was not gonna be around much longer, and that was the second one, when I got the two grand theft auto charges and my face caught a buck-fifty in the street.
I don’t want to belabor the point about the second of those two things, but I did want to ask you about that. I read that it took place on the night of your 25th birthday?
Correct.
Since it was sort of a turning point, not only in terms of causing a physical change but also a change in the rest of your life, maybe you can explain what happened that night? If you’re comfortable doing it — I don’t want to push you to talk about it.
You know, it’s nothing special. It happens all the time. I got drunk, and I got it twisted, you know what I mean? I had that liquid courage in me, and I poked my chest out in an environment that I had no business doing that, because I know, in my right mind, that’s not who I am, you know? And I interchanged something that I normally would have ignored, and he zigged when I zagged, and I got the buck-fifty. Nothing special. It was just me being out of character, once again.
And it left you near death, right?
Yeah. He had a razor. He had a razor in his mouth and I never even saw it. He could have finished this across my jugular and I would have never even known what hit me, you know? Too drunk.
After that happened, how did things change? Did you think it was over for you, as far as being a guy who could be in front of the camera as a dancer or whatever?
You know, if there was ever a “Brooklyn state of mind,” and if I possessed it, that’s when it kicked in, you know? I was determined not to traumatize myself with the situation, and something just said, “Treat it like a pimple. So what?” You know? … And I immediately — I remember having the stitches and going back to dance rehearsals, with the stitches in my face, right away. I went right back to work. I got a job. I was really good at getting really good temp jobs. I got cut on November 22nd, and for the holidays I was working at American Express doing the — you know when you call about the credit card — what’s the word I’m looking for? Verification. I would be on the phone, you know, like, boom — I knew all the codes. If a card was stolen, I would tell my friends in the credit card craft — I would go, “Listen, if you hear them say 10-1, get low! Po-po on the way!” (Laughs.) So, you know, I refused to let it beat me up. They had told me to go and get psychological help — like, to see a psychiatrist. I went once and I said, “This ain’t for me. I’m not gonna take this route.” And, in fact, I didn’t allow myself to feel this [points to the scar from the buck-fifty]. It was my first connection as a method actor. I was doing this film for Matt Mahurin called MugShot, and there was a scene where these guys held me down and they drew with ink all over my face, and put it in my mouth, and, you know, they degraded my face, so I had to come home, and look in this mirror, and look at what they did to me, and feel rage. And that was the first time I saw my scar — in that scene — and I think that was the last time I saw it.
People might assume that it made things harder, but in a lot of ways, from what I’ve read, it didn’t. People started commenting more and more that they thought you have a beautiful face, and you started modeling, and you started doing all kinds of things, more than even before, right?
Yeah. And, you know, not to sound like some spiritual guru or anything, but I really believe — I live my life by the law of karma, and I looked at this as a way of asking myself, “What am I doing wrong? What am I not getting? What message is God trying to tell me that I am not getting?” Because, obviously, He had to raise His voice, you know? So I looked at it like that, and then I said — you know, I’m not gonna lie — you know, like I said, “I am no gangsta, but I know gangstas,” and I had opportunities to give the order for certain actions to take place as a retaliation for this, and I opted out. I opted out. I knew that I did not want blood on my hands. And I honestly believe that because I let it go, I didn’t harbor any ill feelings, I didn’t react in a negative way in revenge, I believe that something happened inside, spiritually. It’s why people look at this and see a thing of beauty. Had I taken the other route, I think it would have made me ugly — from the inside.
And look at how many great things have happened for you in the pretty short time since then …
I’m very, very fortunate.
You were very successful doing the dancing, doing dozens of music videos, but was there an event — some sort of turning point — that made you say, “I’m not only a dancer, I can be an actor, too”?
Absolutely. I was on the set of the George Michael video. He had took a Seal song and morphed it. It was called — (pauses to try to come up with the name).
Oh, was that “Killer”?
“Killer”! Yeah, thank you, it was “Killer.” And Marcus Nispel, you know, was directing that. I’m, like, at least about 30, 40, 50 videos deep by now, and, you know, he was shooting me, and he kept screaming, in this thick German accent, “Michael, emote! Emote, Michael, emote! Give me pain!” And I was like, “What the fuck does ‘emote’ mean?” You know? And the bulb just went off in my head. Literally, I had, like, a revelation — like, “Oh shit, I’m actually acting!” You know? And I was standing there with my bald head, and I’m going, like, you know, way over the top, of course. (Laughs.) It was, like, I felt what he was telling me to do — it hit me here (points to his heart). And then, you know, you just, kind of, like, put it out there. You know, I went home and I, literally, like, just changed my résumé. I added the word “actor” to “model/dancer,” and things started to shift.
I know that you have a unique, awesome story behind your first big break as an actor, so I’ve got to ask you to tell it if you’re willing …
(Laughs.) Pac — Tupac, the late, great Tupac Shakur — had seen a Polaroid picture, you know? ’Cause in the city back then, you know, you would do these music videos, and when you auditioned you’d go in the room, go up against the wall, they’d Polaroid you, “Next!” So, at this point, I had, like, tons of Polaroids of me around the city at various different production companies, and he was shooting this movie called Bullet, with Mickey Rourke, out at this particular production company, and I know the picture that he saw. It was a dark Polaroid. I hated Polaroid ’cause you could never see me and I had this dark purple sweatshirt on that had the word “gravy” on it, and he saw that, and he said he could see my scar, and he said, “Yo! Go find this dude — this dude looks thugged out enough to play my little brother!” And he had Julien Temple’s production company, like, look for me all over New York, and then, you know, I got a call to come in, and I read for it, and, yeah, the rest is history.
I read another interview that you gave in which you talked about three acting teachers who you started working with not long after that. I wonder if you can describe how you came to them and what you learned from them?
Really quickly, I became “the bald-headed boy with the scar” — that shot around New York like a bullet, you know — and I knew that that was gonna get old. It was already getting old for me, and I knew that was gonna wear off, you know? I had enough common sense to know that, “If I want to parlay this five minutes of fame, I’m gonna have to go and get some substance under my belt,” and I knew that I would have to train in some form or fashion. I was doing an extra job on an NYPD Blue, right, and I was coming home, and it was a long day — back then, you had to bring your own clothes to set, and all that shit. So I remember walking down East 4th Street, trying to get to the D train from, like, Avenue D or some shit — we shot way down in the city — and I was like, “Damn, if only I had a blunt right now!” You know, I just wanted to take the edge off and smoke some weed. And I’m walking, and, the next thing I know, “Hey, yo, Mike! What’s up?” And I look up, and you got this blond-haired, blue-eyed dude with this brotha, this Black dude, and they was sitting there smoking a blunt, and I was like, “There is a God!” (Laughs.) You know? So I come to find out that they were both interns at La MaMa Theatre, and they were both working at others too, and blah-blah-blah, woop-dee-woo, and, before you know it, every other day I was at La MaMa Theatre, running around there like a kid, smoking weed, and ditching it when she — you know, “Ellen [Stewart, La MaMa’s founder and artistic director, who died in early 2011] coming! Ellen coming! Put the weed out! Put the weed out!” (Laughs.) You know? So Ray and I — the brotha — he’s from Philadelphia. He and I really, you know — I, kind of, adopted as him as my little brother, you know, ’cause he was out here by himself from Philly, he didn’t have any family, and I was like, “Man, my mama’s your mama,” and we clicked. And one day, on Thanksgiving, he called me, and he was like, “Yo, Mike! You gotta come down to the theater!” On Thanksgiving! I was like, “Come down to the theater?! You know my moms! We about to pray and break bread!” He goes, “Trust me. Get down to the theater, and bring your headshot.” I was like, “What?!” So I go down there, man, and he brings me right to Ellen, and she’s looking at me — she gave me the up and down — and she starts talking to him. She’s like, “He’ll do just fine. Get his information and set him up. I’m gonna fire you and give him the job.” She’s talking to him, to his face, telling him that she’s gonna fire him — my friend — and give me the job. So I was like (whispers), “Yo, Ray, you ready to go? This bitch is crazy, bro. Let’s go, man, back to Brooklyn.” (Reassumes normal voice) So he was like, “No, no, no! You’re gonna do it!” He says, “I don’t wanna do it! You’re gonna do it, and I’m gonna train you, and you’re gonna do it!” And I was like, “Wait, you serious?” He was like, “Bud, this is why I called you down here!” So that meeting turned into a three-hour rehearsal. I missed my Thanksgiving dinner; my mom was pissed at me. And, you know, that was the first thing that I did in the theater, was a play called Tancred and Erminia. It was a city opera, and I learned a lot from Ellen and that whole experience. It was a very European world; we worked with a lot of these Italian actors that were exchange students from Italy, and it was just a whole ’nother world I’d never been exposed to. I didn’t know how to sing opera, you know? (Sings operatically for a moment before reassuming normal voice.) You know? And I had to learn sword fighting. It was very educational. And then the same guy, Ray, calls me again — I think it had to be, like, right after the holidays, right, freezing cold — “Yo, Mikey! Mike! Come down to Harlem! Get on the train and come to Harlem!” I’m like, “Yo, Ray, it’s freezing outside! I’m not coming to Harlem, bro!” He’s like, “Yo! Come to Harlem! Meet me on 125th Street!” I meet him. He takes me to this next theater, the National Black Theatre, of Harlem. We go there. He had me read for a small role in this play called Endangered Species. And I booked that. And then, you know, I worked with Tunde Samuel there — who’s also deceased — and that was another experience. It was like another world, coming from La MaMa, ’cause that had been this way European-type story — this history, you know, about the Armenians and the Crusaders — and then I go to the hood, and I’m telling, like, my story, and using the same emotions, you know, to do different characters. So it opened me — I was wide open. And then, once again, Ray had his mentor come in from Philadelphia — he was a man by the name of Mel Williams, who had taught in the Philadelphia School of Arts for, like, 20 years. He came to New York and started his own company called Theatre for a New Generation, and Ray helped him set it up, and Ray brought me to him, and he really showed me how to use my experience as a Black man to create any kind of character — not just a Black character, but any kind of character, any human being, any man of any race — but to do it from my origin, what I know to be true. And when he gave me that tool, there was no stopping me.
Having had all of those experiences, do you now have some sort of a method that you use every time out that you can put into words? Sometimes people just say, very simply, that they use “the Method,” but from what I’ve read it sounds like you have a number of different routines that you go through …
Well, you know, I’ve learned from the greats — a lot of different things from people I’ve heard interviewed. Yeah, I’ve taken a lot from different people, different things I’ve heard. I learned how to create a backstory for my character from Mel Williams, and from hearing people interviewed about things they did, how they prepare for a character — like, you know, losing weight, gaining weight, getting into a character. I go find people that live the lifestyle of the character I’m portraying; I absorb energy; I listen to dialects, and accents, and conversations, and slangs — I absorb all of that. And then one of the main things that I believe helps me a lot is — I heard Denzel Washington say that he prays to the ancestors to bring his character to him, and I found that to be very, very informative, very useful, you know? It’s just my experience. I like to believe that I open my vessel to allow, for lack of a better word, “spirits,” if you will, into me, and to project these characters, you know? Because what happened with Omar, you know — the only thing was I didn’t know how to release myself from him, and, you know, I had some backlash, you know, on a personal level. And then, lastly, a great way to open my spirit up — my vessel up — is through music. Music is a great motivator for me. I have a tendency to find the music that my character would listen to, whether it’s period, whether it’s hip-hop, whether it’s R&B, whether it’s rock — whatever I think that character listens to. And it doesn’t even have to be of the time that that character even existed in; it can be from whatever period, I don’t care, but if I find a connection in that genre of music with that character, I bring it into my preparation process. Now, getting back to Omar, you know, that character is very dear to me and it’s a milestone in my career and in my life. I call The Wire days “my college days” — you know, I did a lot of growing up, professionally and personally, in Baltimore, and I made a lot of mistakes. I had no knowledge of how to handle myself in this business. I didn’t act out on set or anything stupid like that, but, you know, I had very poor management. I speak to kids now, and I’m real big on having them go about means of finding out ways of managing money early, you know? I say, “Don’t be like me, a grown man, having to pay an accountant, a financial babysitter, you know, because I’ll go shopping before I pay my rent.” You know what I mean? So poor money management — I had really bad, poor money management — and I let my emotions get in the way. Like, with season two. I got so overwhelmed with the success of season one — and I’m not talking about, you know, audience-wise; I’m talking about just personally. Like, I had a gig; it was paying me; season one was the most money I had ever made in my life; and I was like, “Oh, my God, I found the money tree!” You know? So I went into season two, and I spent an insane amount of money to just set up shop, because I also fell in love with the city [of Baltimore] — I went and moved down there. And then I got introduced to the mind of David Simon. He writes different scenarios for each season, and when season two hit, and they brought all the white actors in and told the docks story, you know, and I wasn’t a part of that the way I thought I should have been, I went into an emotional tailspin — you know, I turned into a big baby (feigns crying like a baby), “The Black people always made this show!” (reassumes normal voice). You know, (feigns crying like a baby) “That’s not fair!” (reassumes normal voice). You know? I pouted, you know what I’m saying? I ran around Baltimore, and, in all my free time, wasn’t being productive. I ran the streets, and, you know, it was very costly. I wasted a lot of money, I started drinking and drugging again, and, at the end of season two, I was forced to move back to my projects and sleep on a mattress on the floor.
Just as the show was really taking off …
Yeah. At the end of season two, I was on the floor on a mattress in my projects apartment, and that was not a good feeling, you know? And moving on, I had to learn to put Omar to bed, in a sense, when he got killed off. At that point, you know, nine out of 10 people would call me “Omar,” and I was answering to it. I didn’t know how to purge myself from it. I still had the energy of this character on me, and I started acting as if I was Omar, somehow. Now, let me be clear about one thing: I was not robbing people — I was not, you know, walking around with my boyfriend robbing drug dealers — you know, I wasn’t going off the end like that. But, emotionally, I just had a hard time feeling good. I had a real hard time feeling good. And from that state of mind, I was acting a certain way. You know, when I came into the character [at the beginning of the show], I wasn’t feeling good. I was depressed; I was on Paxil; I was smoking a lot of weed; drinking a lot of alcohol; 9/11 had kicked my ass — I didn’t respond well to that at all, you know, burning flesh in the air and all that shit, I just did not know how to digest that. And mixed with looking out my projects window — my reality — you know, knowing that I desired something more out of life, it was just, it was a really jagged pill to swallow at that time in my life. And that was the state of mind that I was in when I went in to read for Omar.
How did you first even hear about the part of Omar? I mean, there are a lot of actors out there, and you weren’t living down in Baltimore, so how did they come to you, and how did it come together?
Man, thank God for [casting director] Alexa Fogel. She had a good eye for faces and talent. She’s another one — she had to scour the streets of New York to find me, ’cause, for two years, I had left the business, you know? I was one of those actors, early on in my career — I knew that I didn’t want to be one of those people like (says in a squealing voice), “Oh, I want to do a pilot! Pilot season! Pilot season! In L.A.! Pilot season!” (reassumes normal voice). You know? “What the fuck is pilot season?” I was like, “I don’t think that’s me,” you know what I’m saying? “I don’t want to be running up and down the coast.” So I said, “There’s enough work going on in New York City that if it’s meant to be, I can break ground here — set the foundation.” I said, “You know what? L.A. will send for me.” You know, “Why go to Cali? They gonna call me and have me come for a job down there.” That was my goal. And, you know, it happened that I booked damn near every show that was filming in New York City, and, by 1999, I had a Martin Scorsese film under my belt, Bringing Out the Dead; I had a guest-starring role on Law & Order; and I had a guest-starring role on The Sopranos — and I didn’t get killed off! You know, the Black man didn’t get killed off on The Sopranos! (Laughs.) So I packed my bag and sat by the door, waiting for the phone to ring, like, “Yeah, they calling to come get me any minute now — Cali! Yeah, I’m goin’ to Cali!” You know? And that didn’t happen. So, on that Millennium New Year’s, my mother — she took the family — my mother ran a daycare in the projects, and she had done very well for herself, and for that 2000 New Year’s she took the family and we went to the Bahamas, where she’s from, for our holiday. So we toasted drinks, you know? She’s like, “Yeah, Mike, happy New Year,” whoop-dee-woo. She’s like, “You know what, son? Come the New Year, come 2000, why don’t you come work in the daycare? I mean, I’m paying your rent anyway. You might as well earn the money.” So I was like (reluctantly), “I mean, yeah, fuck it, I guess you have a co-worker at daycare,” (reassumes normal voice). When I do something, I put my heart into it, so I said, “Mike,” you know, “I’mma show your mother up and make her proud of you.” I said, “I’mma be the best damn administrative assistant she ever had,” or she didn’t have, ’cause she had everything in her ledger book. So I computerized all her data; I went and did the training; I got the free lunch program put in there; I got the teachers a curriculum; I put computers in there; I had them on the little kiddie CD-roms. And I was proud ’cause I focused, I locked in, I learned a lot about myself and running a daycare, and, mostly, I was proudest that I felt like I was really there for my mom in a way that my father wasn’t, you know? I supported her the best way I can, and I felt really good about that. But then, there was still something that was dying inside — I was still doing a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol, a lot of weed. And one day, I’m sitting in my crib — my apartment — with some friends, and we were whiling out, and the TV was muted — I had the TV on, muted, with music playing — and here comes my Black ass across the screen! And I had this weird feeling like, “There is something majorly wrong with this picture right now.” I looked at the people I got around me and I’m like, “I’m on the fucking TV right now!” You know what I’m saying? “I’m on the fucking TV! I’m on the TV!” (Laughs.) You know? So I went to my mother. I said, “Yo, Ma.” I said, “I think I want to give this one more shot.” This was, like, November of 2001. I said, “I want to give this another shot.” I’d been working in daycare for almost two years. And I put together these packages — I borrowed all this money from my mom, to get this package, and I put it out there. I had a hit list of 10 people. I said, “I’mma reinvent myself and send this package out to reintroduce myself to the industry: ‘Michael Kenneth Williams is back!'” (Laughs.) You know what I’m saying? And no one answered; I got not one phone call. I spent, like, I bet a sum of ten grand. And when I tell you I got so depressed — I expected a phone call by February, you know? I released them for Christmas presents. I said, “I’ll let the holidays pass.” By January 14th, 15th, “Yeah, I should get a phone call. I’ll wait, ’cause I know I did that.” Man, that phone ain’t ringing, and I had the Paxil — I was (mimes scooping a handful of pills into his mouth and then taking a big swig of alcohol). “Oh, shit!” (Laughs.) You know what I’m saying? Wiling! And then March came, and I had this breakdown [a brief description of a forthcoming production] on the fax — my mother said, “You got something on the fax” at the daycare — and I looked at it, and it was from Alexa Fogel’s office, and it was, you know, this dude named Omar Little.
Unbelievable! And did they ever tell you what made them reach out to you for that?
It was all Alexa. She went looking for me. She wanted to give me a chance to at least read for it, you know. And, against HBO’s decision of wanting a “face” — ’cause they clearly wanted a face for that character — she said, “Let me go find my dude.” She remembered me from, like, I think an audition from Oz I never got. She just remembered me, and I’m very grateful for that. And she looked for me, ’cause I wasn’t easy to find — I was off the grid for two years, you know?
Did you go down to Baltimore to audition?
No, man, it was so quick, you know? She brought me in her office and I had one audition scene — it was the scene when McNulty and Kima Greggs ran into Omar; Omar led them into the graveyard; and they had that conversation about snitching bugs and all that stuff. You know? That was my audition scene.
Yeah. “If you ever need somebody to call …”
Yeah, yeah. That was my audition scene. I literally did that once — I had one take. I put that on tape at Alexa Fogel’s office; she sent the tape in; and, next thing I know, they were telling me to report to Baltimore ASAP.
Could you believe it?
(Laughs.) Not really. I still pinch myself, you know? That was the first time I’d ever booked anything off tape like that, you know?
For somebody who’s been living in a hole for the past decade and hasn’t seen The Wire yet, how would you explain who Omar Little is?
First of all, he’s a Robin Hood — I got that from people who’ve watched the show and fallen in love with the show over the years, and I’ve decided that I agree. He’s a Robin Hood. He’s an underdog. He is someone in society that, if given the chance, could have been President Barack Obama, had he been given the opportunities — great mind, great heart, a lot of courage. But he woke up one morning, with all that greatness, all that potential, and was like, “Oh, shit. I’m stuck in Baltimore, Maryland — ‘Body-morgue Murder-land.’ Ain’t this a bitch. (Sings.) A-hunting we will go!” And he just accepted where he was and who he was, and made no excuses for it, never complained, just, “It is what it is.”
What’s amazing to me is that he’s so different from you — you said that you’d never even touched a gun before The Wire …
(Nods in agreement.)
And here you are, playing this guy, who, on paper, would seem to be the most unlikable guy …
(Nods in agreement.)
And, yet, people can’t get enough of him. This was a show that featured so many heroic characters, and yet I’m sure that if you polled average guys on the street, they would say that their favorite character was Omar. How do you explain that? What do you think it was about him that appealed to people?
You know, I knew that I had very little in common with Omar, but I knew that I needed to make him feel and look so believable, so I had to find something to identify with him, and I thought the best way to do that would be to identify with his vulnerability. What makes Omar vulnerable? The fact that he’s so sensitive. Omar is sensitive and so am I, and I’m passionate, and my sensitivity and my vulnerability is what makes me volatile. You could do whatever you want to me, but don’t touch my mom or my kids, you feel me? And, you know, that whole thing? That’s what makes him volatile — if you back up or if you cross his line — ’cause he don’t break this line for nobody, and I share that in common with him, but it comes from a very sensitive place. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t do that,” you know? So I didn’t play Omar as an alpha male; that’s not my reality, you know? Very vulnerable, but volatile at the same time. And why people identify with him? The minute Alexa sent me that breakdown and I read it, I immediately made a conscious decision to embrace every aspect of this man’s life. There was no hesitation from the door. “Everything,” I said, “I love about this dude, and I’m gonna embrace it, and I’m gonna play it with heart and believability.” You know? It’s like I feel chosen. I feel proud to have been chosen to be a voice for people that would normally be judged by society as dangerous, or society would not want to be involved with or be in the same room with the likes of. And I got people who have never even seen a real Omar that express an undying love for him. I got people from the hood who are homophobic — who can’t stand “f—ots” — but love Omar even though he’s a “f—ot,” you know? I didn’t go into the character with all of that in mind; I had not a clue that people would embrace it the way they did. My only job was to make him — you was gonna feel him. You may not like him, you may actually hate him — that is your decision — but one thing my job was to do was I was gonna make damn sure you were gonna feel him. That was my job. That was the only thing I went in there with as my goal, going in. And I think the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve — which came from the writing, you know — you didn’t have to wonder what was on his mind. He shot from the hip. If he said, “I’ll be here at 3 o’clock,” he’d be there at 2:55, you know? I think people may not agree with his lifestyle, but, at the end of the day, they respected him as a man.
He had his code …
Yeah, he had his code. And, at the end of the day, in real life, that’s all we want from each other — “Man, just be real. Be real. Be who you are. Keep it real with me. Don’t bullshit me.” You know? And I think that was the main thing that attracted people to Omar, to the character, was his honesty.
I have to ask you: “A-hunting We Will Go” — was that suggested by you or by the script?
It’s script. Everything, man. Very little was left for me to decide. The only thing that I can say I made a decision to do was to make him have a Baltimorean accent; I didn’t want him to sound like a dude from Brooklyn. But, you know, David and them — they have it written as “The Farmer in the Dell,” which is where the supporters — I hate to say “fans”; I say, you know, the people who supported the show — they had formed this group online called “The Cheese-a-holics,” like, “The cheese stands alone” [quoting a lyric from “The Farmer in the Dell”]. But that never registered to me in my mind. In my mind, Omar was whistling this Elmer Fudd tune from when he’d be hunting Bugs and Donald: “A-hunting we will go —” That fit to me, so, in my mind, that’s what I was saying.
And you would whistle it …
Yeah, whistle. But I was not whistling “Farmer in the Dell”; I was whistling “A-hunting We Will Go,” you know?
Can we get one whistle?
(Laughs.) Then I gotta get the gun and the trenchcoat, you know?
(Laughs.) I’ll have to duck-and-cover …
You know?
One last thing about Omar: He never swore …
No, yeah. No, that just spoke to his brilliance that we spoke about earlier, you know, the mindset of this man, and the potential. He was able to articulate his feelings without using profanity. How rare is that in the hood?!
It’s like Brother Mouzone …
You know what I mean? Yeah, Brother Mouzone was very educated, you know? The same as Omar, you know? That also spoke to his sensitivity, you know? He saw profanity as being harsh. Omar’s very sensitive — too harsh for him.
As someone who is sensitive yourself, I’d like to ask you about two topics that often come up in discussions about The Wire. One of them is about the depiction of violence within the inner city. You’ve previously made statements that seemed to imply that you were a little apprehensive about some of that, but I guess the other side of the argument is that showing that was necessary to make a larger point. What are your thoughts on that now?
I mean — you’re talking about the violence on the show or the violence on the streets of the real world?
Well, on the show …
I mean, those stories came from the Baltimore police files, you know? And Baltimore’s a city that no one in this country was thinking about, or talking about, or cared about, you know? Baltimore was a city where there was a lot of corruption going on, and until The Wire no one cared, you know? And, yeah, I did struggle — there was one particular scene, [spoiler alert] the Omar kills Stringer Bell scene, or Omar and Brother Mouzone kill Stringer Bell scene. I struggled with that, you know? I was like, “Damn!” I said, “You know, you got these two kings —” Stringer was a great mind; that was a beautiful mind, man, with a lot of ambition. He was a king, you know? And you’ve got these two kings going at it, and killing each other. It was just like, “Damn,” you know? It looked like — it just kind of showed to me what slavery has done to us; it has taken away our ability to communicate with each other, you know, and we gotta use those guns and shed the blood. And I just wondered — I just had a hard time with that scene.
The other issue may be naive of me to even bring up, but I’m just curious: I understand the need for authenticity in the show, and I think that was one thing that it really nailed, but the fact is that the N-word is used as much in the show as the F-word was used in Pulp Fiction. It’s not that people have never heard it before, but I wonder if it bothers you at all, because it almost fetishizes the word …
You know what? I’d rather you look me in my face and call me a n—er than do what [people] did to those little kids down in Jena Six. [The “Jena Six” were six Black students who were convicted in the beating of a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on Dec. 4, 2006. Many felt that the charges and sentences doled out to the Black students failed to take into consideration the racial tensions in the community that preceded the crime, prompting significant media coverage, government hearings and some of the largest civil rights marches in years.] I’d rather you look me dead in my face and call me a n—er to my face; this way I know what I’m dealing with. Keep it real. Put your shit on the table, bro, you know what I’m saying? Don’t mind-fuck me. Don’t do that. That’s not fair. What part of the game is that? You know? So, like, what Jigga say, you know, “When Jena Six don’t exist, that’s when I’ll stop saying ‘bitch,’ bee-yo-tch!” You know what I mean? So, man, you know — The Wire, man — it showed so much. It’s not just the streets, you know? The Wire exposed a country in trouble, a nation in trouble, you know? When I look back at The Wire as a whole, and I look at season two — it was one of the most important seasons to the country, as a whole, because we’re fuckin’ vulnerable on them docks, you know what I’m sayin’? We don’t grow cocoa leaves in the fuckin’ hood, bro. Where is this coke coming from? Where is this dope coming from?
And what else could come in …
And how else could it come in? The ports! And, through my travels, right — you know, The Wire has blessed me — I get to travel around the country a lot, and I go to these rural places, and one thing I have noticed: There is a Wire in every city in every state in the goddamn country! You talkin’ Rhode Island? I done seen the hood in Rhode Island; I done seen the hood in Boston; I done seen the hood in Pittsburgh; I done seen the hood in Harrisburg; you know? It’s the same shit all over the goddamn country!
And we pretend that it’s not there …
That it’s not there! You know what I’m sayin’?
It’s easier to turn away …
Bro! And The Wire shed a light on that. It illuminated a part of our culture, a part of our society, our school system, man, we’re failing it, you know? And it’s the same thing in [the documentary] Waiting for Superman, you know? That was season four. So, you know, you can worry about the word “n—er” if you want to, but there are some more pressing issues to focus on. I’m not talking about you — I’m just saying in general.
Of course. And there is obviously some value in showing the way things really are. I mean, they’re not talking about Saved by the Bell at Harvard; they’re talking about The Wire. President Obama’s not calling someone else his favorite character; he’s calling Omar his favorite character. I think it shows that you reached a wider audience …
Yeah. I tell them the same thing at Harvard, you know? I don’t be up there Stepin Fetchin-it. I said, “Yo,” I said, “How many of y’all watched The Wire?” Everybody’s hands went up, proud — (says mockingly) “I bought two box sets!” (reassumes voice). I said, “Keep your hands up. How many of y’all got a kid from the hood in Boston that you’re mentoring?” (Mimes a hand slinking down and a head looking away.) I said, “That’s the fucking problem!” I said, “What you calling me up here to talk for? It’s not brain surgery, bro!” I said, “You’re all up here at Harvard getting the best education in the fucking world.” I said, “Boston’s streets are some of the worst in this goddamn country!” I said, “Snatch you up a kid. Don’t matter what color. Snatch you up a kid, man, and teach them some law, teach them some of the shit that you’re all getting in here. Mentor!” You know?
You’re right. It only does so much to talk about it …
Yeah, man, really. It does only but so much. Talking will only go so far.
OK, well the next thing: It seems like an actor is really lucky if he’s on one great show in his life. To be on two is pretty unbelievable, especially when the second comes so soon after the first, as it has for you. I heard that you first heard about Boardwalk when you were working on the TV series The Philanthropist in Cape Town, which is where my mom’s from, and I was just there, too —
Wow, man! I love Cape Town, man!
I heard you were having some fun there —
A little too much fun.
(Laughs.) Well, that’s easy to do there, with the vineyards and everything …
(Laughs.)
And then you got another phone call?
Yeah. You know, the fact that I was having too much fun in Cape Town was a sign that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing, and my instincts — my conscience — started kicking in, like, “Mike, I think I want to be off this show.” You know? I was rockin’ and rollin’ in Cape Town — hard, you know? And I just knew I would not have survived another four or five years in Cape Town — not at the rate that I was going, you know? (Laughs.) And I didn’t feel challenged in the character, so I asked to be let out of my contract even before I had heard any word of Boardwalk. I said, you know, “I just don’t want to be out here anymore.” Then — boom — the phone call came, and it was the same thing. They said, “Put stuff on tape.” I did. Neve Campbell [his Philanthropist co-star] — she read against me. And my man taped it. And we sent it in — YouSendIt.com. And next thing I know, they were saying I’d booked it. You know, they say lightning don’t strike twice in the same place, but, man, I’m living proof that it does. There’s no words to say how fortunate I am, you know? To keep it real: To be a Black man in Hollywood — not only just to land those two roles, but as a Black man in Hollywood, to go on those two shows back to back, you know, on such a great network as HBO — man, to say I’m fortunate is an understatement.
You mentioned that you’d worked with Scorsese before. With Boardwalk was he really the deal-sealer for you, or was there somebody else there who pushed for you to be involved?
You know, he remembered me from Bringing Out the Dead, but, honestly, I owe a lot for me being on Boardwalk to Tim Van Patten. He and I had a great relationship on The Wire, and I think he really, out of everybody — him, Terry [Terrence Winter] and Marty — I think he saw me firsthand on The Wire, and what was going on with Omar, and I think he pushed the hardest to get me on the show.
From what I understand, the creative team behind Boardwalk gave you some history about the real Chalky White, but you took it a little further.
My main goal with Chalky — because there were some similarities, I had to make real sure that there was no Omar present, ’cause even though they’re very different, there’s also a thin line that separates the two, and I didn’t want to cross that. That was my first main thing I wanted to do. I also really dug deep into my ancestral energy with Chalky, you know? I have uncles that remind me of Chalky that are no longer here, so I pulled on their energy. And then I created his backstory — I said, “He came from the South. He came North for a better way of life. He had a gangster’s mentality, but he got to Atlantic City and he was a businessman in every sense of the word,” you know? Which is where he differed from Omar. Omar was in it for the thrill of the hunt; Chalky’s a businessman; but they both had the same code, the same morals, you know? You can see Chalky’s — you can see the morals he has — when Meyer Lansky tries to get him in that little bullshit, you know, “Tell Nucky it’s gonna cost more than 10 grand for him to get me to fuck him over! I’m a bigger man than that!” You know what I mean? So that’s what they share in common. But, you know, it was so funny, I ran into Mike Tyson in L.A. a couple of weeks ago, and he’s the only one that knew that Chalky was a real person, that he was really a boxer, you know? I don’t bring much of that into the character, but it’s good to know the background, you know? He can take a hit. He’s in it for the long haul. And Chalky goes down in history as one of the 100 greatest hitters of all time.
Boardwalk is shot right around here, right?
Yeah, in Brooklyn. We shoot it down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, at the Steiner Studio.
Having shot The Wire on the actual location where it’s set, is it easier or harder to shoot Boardwalk in New York rather than in Atlantic City itself? From what I’ve heard, they did a hell of a job re-creating it …
Oh, masterful, amazing. Even when you look at it with the naked eye, you can’t tell it’s a set, it looks so real, like, the actual buildings. But, I mean, for me, coming from Baltimore here, when I was on the mattress on the floor of my projects apartment, the next step for me was eviction. I got evicted out of the projects, and that’s when I left New York City, and I had been fortunate enough to live on the road — I lived the life of a gypsy, out of my suitcase, going from one set to the next — and it started to wear on me. It really started to wear on me. I had a hard time getting grounded. And finally, when I booked Boardwalk and I was shooting back in Brooklyn, I felt like I had come full circle, you know? So I’m very happy to be home in my borough. I remember — years ago, when I would drive — on my route to the city, I would never take Flatbush Avenue or Rogers because the traffic was too congested; I would ride Washington Avenue, and cycle around, and then take Park, and go around the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and hit the Brooklyn Bridge from the side over there. And back then, there was always this talk that De Niro was gonna turn the Brooklyn Navy Yard into a film studio, and I was like, “Oh, man, they’re gonna turn this into a Holly-hood!” I used to call it “Holly-hood.” And I was like, “Yeah!” I said, “Man, this would be so perfect.” Now, don’t get it twisted — I love Cali — but I was always obsessed with being, like, one of them snobby New Yorkers, like, “I didn’t have to go to Cali! I made it here!” (Laughs.) You know what I’m saying? So I was like, “Yeah! It’s close to the projects, and I could just drive right here from the projects, and I could shoot right here!” And I look back and I laugh so hard, because I saw myself working at “Holly-hood” as an actor, but still living in the fucking projects! (Laughs.) I laugh at that all the time — and I was dead serious, man! “I could drive! I’m close to the projects! I ain’t gotta leave New York! I could stay right here, and take Washington right down my route, and come up through this side here! And just shoot right here!” And I visualized all of that shit, but, through all of that, I never saw myself leaving the projects — you know, I guess mainly because, although there was a lot of darkness where I grew up in, there was also a lot of happiness. I had a very beautiful childhood. I loved my childhood growing up in the projects. It was a lot of fun.
You talked about your ancestry and bringing things full circle. Well, if the world ended tomorrow, and there was one guy that somehow made it, and all he had to do was watch TV, I think the scene from Boardwalk that could hold its own against anything else that’s ever been done … (Williams starts to smile.) You know what I’m gonna say —
“I ain’t buildin’ no bookcase!” (Laughs.)
So I have to ask you: How many pages was that? How did you prepare for it? And what does it tell us about Chalky?
That scene had to be about four, maybe five pages. I prepared for that by calling — you know, don’t fix what ain’t broken — Mel Williams from Theatre for a New Generation, my director, and I said, “I need help with this,” and we worked it for several hours. My goal was to treat that like a one-act play, a one-man show. I wanted it to be so seamless, I wanted to give them the option of not having to cut it if they didn’t want to. What that said about Chalky? We got the first insight to this man and his family life, you know? We saw how he revered his father. We saw that with all of his money, and all of his gangsterism ways, and, you know, his high-yellow wife, and his fancy clothes, and everything, we see that, at the end of the day, he loved his daddy and he missed his relationship with his father. They took something from him when they hung his father, and that was probably the turning point that said, “You will never get me! You will never, ever catch me sleeping the way you caught my father!” He became a man that day.
Last question — and this is the big-picture one. You’ve been a part of these two shows that will be on any list of the greatest shows ever when all is said and done — they seem like they provided two families for you; you told the stories of not only two people, but two cities. As I referenced, the president of the United States adores your performance in the first, like everybody else. At the end of the day, many years from now when we’re all gone, how would you like people to remember Michael Kenneth Williams?
Man, I just want people to remember me as one cool-ass dude, you know? Someone who cared. And I would never want anybody to say, “Oh, he forgot where he came from.” That would hurt me the most.
Well, I think the “cool-ass dude” part is checked off —
(Laughs.)
And the rest of it, I’m sure, is gonna be all right. Thank you so much, I really, really appreciate it.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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