10 Things We Learned at PaleyFest’s ‘Wire’ Reunion
“They were all singing ‘Down in the Hole’ together in the elevator, so I think they’re raring to go,” joked moderator Alan Sepinwall, and he wasn’t kidding. As the cast members and producers of The Wire made their way to the Paley Center’s stage for this special PaleyFest 2014 reunion and panel, each person seemed as jazzed to be there as the audience. Many of these former co-stars hadn’t seen each other in years, and for us superfans who’ve now seen the HBO series three or four times, the sight of so much love in the room was slightly disorienting: Wait, did Marlo Stanfield just give Omar a bro-hug? What is D’Angelo Barksdale whispering to Sgt. Ellis Carver that was so funny? Why is Deputy Commissioner Rawls not screaming profanity and tearing everybody present a new one?!?
To see showrunner David Simon, producer Nina Kostroff-Noble and the eight Wire actors on stage (as well as the three cast members sitting in the audience who also chimed in) affectionately reminisce and dissect what was continually referred to throughout the night as “the greatest series in television history” was a dream come true. It was also a chance for the folks responsible for this groundbreaking show to reveal a few favorite anecdotes, behind-the-scene tidbits and some answers to longstanding questions. Here are 10 things we learned after going way, way down in the hole with these Wire all-stars.
1. Seth Gilliam does a mean “Herc” impersonation.
The actor who played Sgt. Ellis Carver admits that, during the show’s second season — when the focus shifted from the housing projects to Baltimore’s docks — that he and actor Domenick Lombardozzi, who played his partner-in-crimefighting Det. “Herc’ Hauk, were getting tired of doing virtually nothing. They were going to threaten to leave the show if Simon didn’t start using them more. When Simon recalled pointing out that the actors might be feeling exactly what they’re characters were feeling and that this might be intentional, Gilliam then went into a dead-on impersonation of Herc’s outer-borough bark: “I wish they’d trust us more…if this don’t turn into something, I’m gonna fuck knock David Simon out!” The audience roared.
2. Michael Kenneth Williams thought he was out after Season One.
The actor who played what’s arguably The Wire‘s biggest fan-favorite character — the whistling nightmare of Bodymore’s drug-thug community, Omar Little — was so excited to be part of the show that he moved to Baltimore after the first season ended. Then the scripts started coming in for Season Two and he was confused that the cops-vs.-dealers storyline had been pushed to the side — meaning Omar was off the show. “How come when we make your show hot, then you gotta give it to the white people?!?” he said he asked Simon at the time. Once the laughter died down, Simon calmly joked, “Michael, that’s the way it works.” The producer said he then explained that Omar would be back and that this was all part of the long game the show was playing. “At the moment, I got it,” Williams said. “I was a small part of a bigger picture.”
3. Wendell Pierce did not have a problem with profanity.
It was inevitable that the single most memorable scene from The Wire‘s first season — an investigation in which the only dialogue consists of the f-word — would be the topic of conversation at one point during the evening. Sure enough, Sepinwall brought it up when talking to Wendell Pierce, the actor who played Bunk and made up one half of the sequence’s obscenity-spewing duo. Pierce talked about how he viewed it as an caching exercise, and the scene is probably the one thing he’s done that, as performer, he’s most proud of. So how hard was it to film this now-legendary exchange? Pierce took a long beat before answering, “Fucking easy.”
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