"Omar!" It's more than a name, it's a salutation among devotees of the beloved, just-completed HBO dramatic series The Wire. Explaining the phenomenon to those unaware can be difficult, but try this: Over the course of The Wire's five seasons, Michael Kenneth Williams' complicated, violent character, Omar Little, somehow gained more love and respect from audiences than even the show's ostensible heroes in the Baltimore Police Department. Introduced in season one as a drug-dealer-robbing gay thief with a prominent facial scar (a real souvenir from a bar fight Williams had in his 20s), Omar quickly became a pivotal character—a surprisingly ethical thief and killer with a fierce devotion to the code of the streets. By the series' end, that devotion made Little the last of a dying breed. With The Wire's gritty, realistic portrayals of Baltimore street life, no cast member was guaranteed a happy ending. That went double for Omar Little, whose job—robbing drug dealers with a shotgun—routinely put a price on his head. By the time season five began in January, many Wire fans were so invested in Williams' character that each of his scenes felt heavy with dread. They wanted the murderous Omar to live through the series' conclusion, but most surely knew that the show wouldn't allow such a life to end happily. [Spoiler ahead, and many more in the interview.] Omar Little's strangely noble life met an ignoble end, shot by a child gunman in the back of the head while buying his usual pack of Newports. The scene disappointed many fans, but it stayed true to The Wire's almost impenetrable search for truth. Regardless, for Williams it was a happy ending. The Wire has provided a breakthrough, iconic role for the New Yorker, who started his career as a dancer-choreographer in the early '90s. He's currently involved in several projects, including Spike Lee's upcoming WWII drama, Miracle At St. Anna, and John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, co-starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron. Just before The Wire ended, Williams spoke with The A.V. Club about life as Omar, The Wire's thematic arch, and R. Kelly's prolificacy.
The A.V. Club: Do you get called Omar a lot?
Michael Kenneth Williams: On the regular. It's like Omar is my alias name. I get called Omar more than I get called Michael—it's crazy.
AVC: When did you get the sense that people were getting attached to the character?
MKW: In the beginning people would come up and tell me how much they love the character, love the show. I didn't really believe it. I just took it as "Oh thanks, I'm just a guy on a TV show. I'm one of many people on this particular TV show doing as great a work as you think I'm doing." After a while I started to listen to what was being said. One lady, she grabs me and says, "No you don't understand. We needed this. This needed to be said. We needed The Wire, and we needed Omar." One time, this gentleman in L.A. at an audition, he grabbed me, and you could tell this man had been to hell and back—to hell and back. And he grabbed my hand, he looked in my eye, and he said: "I know you a real thug, nigga. I know!" I was like, "Dude, I've never even bust a gun before The Wire. I've never even held a gun before The Wire." I didn't have the heart to tell him. I realized then that when people see me, they really see this character.
It was a little scary in the beginning because I don't want people thinking I'm some… They start testing me and shit. But I see it like, "You know Mike, don't even think negatively about it. This is love." I'm going to embrace it for what it's for, which is love and admiration. I'm gonna look at it like that. I just started embracing it. And from that point, I listened to everything people said. They say, "I know you hear this a thousand times…" I don't treat it that way. I treat it like it's the first time I'm hearing it, and I take my time, and I listen to what they're saying, and I concur, and we have a real conversation. And I started realizing that this is something happening here. This is not just another television show. This is doing something to the community and for the community. People are responding in a way that I've never really seen people respond to other television shows.
AVC: So was it after the first season that you noticed?
MKW: I would say third season. First season I was oblivious. Second season I was too busy, worried at the fact that they had all these new actors in, white actors. I'd never seen that before in a television show. "What, you're gonna change the whole cast?! What is this?! After the great season we had last year, why would you not want to bring us back?" I realize, looking back, what they were doing. They had a story to tell, and had they not told that dock story, a big part of this puzzle would have been left out. Because we all know what brothers are doing in the 'hood, with the work. We all know who sold the drug, who used the drug. But what we never really focus on is where the work comes from. We're not on them docks or ports, you feel me? And then it opened up a bigger picture, like who's watching the docks? When you say there's a war on drugs, what the fuck is that? What is this war on drugs when the work comes in fresh off the water, right into the harbor, right into the city? So looking back I realize what was going on, that season two was very necessary. But I was too caught up in my own matrix of wanting to just work and stay working. But by the time season three came along, I started to get it.
AVC: The Wire has a reputation for springing plot developments on the cast at the last minute. How much time was there between when you found out Omar was going to be killed and when you shot the scene?
MKW: I think they gave me a call about a week or less before the scripts went out, then I got the script and read it to myself.
AVC: Did you make any special preparations, or were you trying to make it just like another day in Omar's life?
MKW: Just another day at the office. I'll tell you what was weird, though. That day on the set, everybody was trying to act like there wasn't an elephant in the room. Nobody really wanted to deal with the emotion of losing Omar. It was like: "We're not going to mourn this television character. We're not going to get that painful feeling because of a character." Everybody was in agreement, but it was clear everybody was trying not to go there. It was weird seeing me with the make-up. I could imagine what that did to people. We're a family down there in Baltimore. The cast of The Wire is a very communal cast. That scene represented a lot more than just a character leaving; it was the end of an era for the cast as a whole, for this television show, and for Omar.
AVC: Because you lost so many recurring characters over the course of the season, was there any sort of tradition for when somebody got killed off?
MKW: Nothing really special. We'd normally always be there. Like the time when Kima got shot in season one, I think the entire cast was there. That was the first big "Oh shit!" Excuse my language. We all were there for that. When D'Angelo went out, Larry [Gillard Jr.] got so many phone calls; everybody just went right to him. I think his phone was filling up that whole week. Everybody was like, "Are you all right? Need anything?" When Stringer Bell went, everybody was there. It was crazy. Same thing with Omar.
AVC: David Simon said that Omar's death wasn't so much the consequence of his actions, but fate. Did you see it more as Omar getting what was coming to him, or as something else?
MKW: Yeah, there's a little bit of karma in there. Revenge is not a positive state of mind or energy to indulge your self in. That clearly was what Omar was coming back for initially. The base of what he came back for was revenge, murder. Really more so than that was his fate, because they do say that "live by the gun, you die by the gun." But what I really think Omar's death represented is a message that those lifestyles, the roads, the choices you make have consequences. Omar's very popular with the youth. It's cool to love Omar. I love Omar, nobody love Omar more than me, but make no mistake: I pray to God nobody wants to be this dude, because I had to get inside of his mind, and it's a dark, dark vortex. Let's let Omar rest in peace, and let's remember him in a positive light. Let his legacy stand for something positive. We gotta do better. Omar was a smart dude with a good heart and a lot of common sense. Had he applied himself to other things, anything he would have applied himself to unquestionably would have been successful.
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