>HR: Well, going back to a different kind of understanding, there is a lot of homophobia in this country, and we recently had this incident where the former NBA star Tim Hardaway said, “I hate gays,” and he was savaged for that. Uh, having said that, uh, Michael and Sonja, do you feel like in any way your characters can give straights a better understanding of gays?

* pause *

(both Michael and Sonja chuckle)

* laughter *

(* AR whistles *)

MKW (mumbles): He sure gave me one…

HR: I’ll give you some time.

MKW: I think, um, well, in particularly in the… just in the black community… in the, in the urban community…

HR: Yeah.

MKW: … I notice that, um, nobody talks, like, people that… that in my community that run up to me that express admiration for the character, normally would be, you know, really horrified by his sexual orientation. But, you know, I don’t know if it’s because it’s on TV, because… I don’t know what happened between the connection of homophobia in the black community and then Omar, but something happened, and then there was a bridge that kinda got gapped. And nobody… you know, like every once in a while, people will, you know, bring up the whole homosexual thing about Omar, and I… I tell people, you know, when The Wire is done, gone, and people talk about the character, the last thing that people… Omar’s going to be remembered for is who he slept, you know, I just don’t think that’s going to be the main thing that the character, or Sonja’s character, is going to be remembered for. So, I’m just amazed at how, in the black community how, how, you know, it’s, you know, it’s kinda, he’s got, kinda, this ghetto pass, if you will.

* laughter *

MKW: It’s okay, you know… “Homosexuality is disgusting, but if it’s Omar?...”

* laughter *

MKW: So, um… it’s just crazy.

HR: Sonja, do you want to add anything to that?

SS: I just have to say, if you… if you are not familiar with urban, you know, ghetto black culture, you will just, you just won’t know what an impact this character (Omar) has made on that part of society.

HR: Why is that, do you think?

SS: I… you know, I, I real… honestly, um, I wish I could answer that. Um, you know, the character is smart, and strong, and fair.

AF: And masculine.

SS: And?

AF: And masculine.

SS: And masculine, no, absolutely. And masculine. And you know, that resonates… that seems to resonate very deeply with the black males, you know, in that part of our society. And I’m gonna tell you, it’s changed people. You change people. You see hip-hop… you know, brothers from hip-hop, being down with Omar, coming up to Michael whenever we go out to clubs, and just… you know… (* gives self dap *) “Omar”… and they’re talking about Omar. They’re really not talking to Michael…

* laughter *

SS: … they’re talking to Omar. And I look at that, and I go, wow, you know, that’s a beautiful thing. That’s a beautiful thing, that television can have that kind of effect. It’s subconscious, but it’s real.

AF: Can I add something to that? Um, I think this is so true. People love Omar. The amount of calls that I get from people who want to be on the show, um, is unbelievable. But… but the impact that that character has had in a lot of ways on people who would not have entertained playing certain things, it’s really changed things, it’s really interesting. I’m not talking about actors, per se, but I mean…

ED: I think people are—

AF: I mean, and I live in New York. People love Omar.

ED: Yeah, I think folks are fascinated with a character who lives by his own rules…

AF: Right.

ED: … makes his own rules, makes no apologies for them, and does his own thing, all the way.

HR: But he’s a killer.

AF: No…

ED: But he’s a Robin Hood, no…

HR: The guy’s a killer.

ED: But look at… but look at who he goes after. He doesn’t go after civilians. He doesn’t go after civilians…

AF: He has a moral code.

ED: … he has a moral code.

WP: That’s the complexity of humanity, too. That, you know, people love Omar, that doesn’t mean they love killers. You know? That’s how, I think, a lot of people I that know who speak about the character to me say, you know. Uh, and also, that’s something I try to tap into with my character Bunk, who actually has a connection with Omar because, you know, There But By the Grace of God Go I. You’re from the same working-class neighborhood that I’m from, and look at what you’ve turned into, and what, you know, I think you should be. But, I have no reason to connect with him if I didn’t care about him.

HR: This is one of the things that really defines good drama, isn’t it? Moral ambiguity? That everybody is not one thing or the other?

ED: I mean, one of the great things about the show is that, in a lot of ways, it’s a western. And Omar is, like…

CC: Clint Eastwood.

ED: … the perfect uh, the perfect outlaw.

HR: Billy the Kid…

ED: He’s the outlaw. And, he’s a Robin Hood-type character, because, uh, when you look at anybody that he has killed, I mean, he’s been blamed for a lot of things he didn’t do over the course of the show. But, whenever you look at somebody he has killed, it’s their own fault.

* laughter *

HR: That’s what he says…

ED: You know, you have a guy with a sawed-off shotgun standing in front of you, you know, you should know what to do. And if you don’t do it, you’re going to pay the price.

AF: But the complexities about these characters, and what makes them multi-dimensional… there’s that great scene between Bunk and Omar (to WP) when you get him out…

WP: Mmm hmm…

AF: … and you’re yelling at each other in front of the car? And Omar’s like, “I know, I know, I know, I owe you.” I mean, there’s… there’s so many different colors to what these guys get to play, because so much more is being put on the page than we normally get to see.

ED: And, and the way these two gentlemen play it beautifully? Even though they’re at odds with each other, there’s a grudging respect for each other…

WP: Mmm hmm…

ED: … which is, which is quite beautiful. It’s one of the things I love about it.

DS: I should say this. One of the tricks, one of the hard things about the show has always been, if you plan something well in advance, then you’re committed. And, I’ve worked on shows before, very good shows, where, you know, uh, a love triangle wasn’t working -- well, let’s abandon that plotline. Or there’s no chemistry between these two people or that, you know. And you just veer into another storyline, and you… stuff falls away, and… um, you know, Ed and I sat down shortly after the first season and started mapping out what each little chunk of Baltimore would be, if HBO, you know, so allowed us to proceed. And that required that you started making plans like, for, uh, Bob Wisdom’s character. We brought him on in second season to express, for one scene, at… at the crime scene of that… the kid who got shot through the window, he expressed his disgust for the drug war, and how useless it is. That was a whole setup for what was going to happen in season 3, if we even got a season 3. Um, we knew where we were going with that character. We knew that Prez was going to bottom out as a cop, so that he would be there for the educational component. The other trick to this, looking at my cast here, is that, you cast somebody on The Wire and it’s like, you’re making a commitment that, alright, this character has to end up here and they have to go through all these elements. Um, we’re committed. So, we really had to cast correctly, um, because if we didn’t, we were gonna be caught. You know, if for whatever reason, uh, you know, Jim couldn’t have made the arc into Pryzbylewski’s… Pryzbylewski as the teacher, then we were setting up the wrong guy for three seasons of frustration as a cop. Um, we, we were going to be nowhere for season 4. That’s really tricky to do, because, you know, most television is, you plan at the beginning of the season, but then stuff goes wrong, and you react. And with this, we really were sort of locked into… I mean, we know… we know where the endings are, we know exactly where we’re going. And the other thing that that costs you as a television show is, you have to be able to say goodbye to the show, which is something that doesn’t… it’s a lot easier when, you know, uh, whatever attention The Wire has gotten, we got late. But, um, but, it’s a lot harder when it’s a hit, because if the whole world is saying, it’s just great, you gotta keep going, you gotta keep going, the whole construct of serial storytelling is, “Well, I’ll give you more of what you like. Or, “I’ll keep my audience.” And eventually, that becomes a thin gruel. Um, so, in some ways, The Wire’s been blessed in a lot of ways by being left alone. We… you know, the expectations have been reduced, I think, at the beginning. (to CS) Not so much that you would cancel us, but just enough so that it was like…

* laughter *

DS: … go tell the best story you can.

CS: Well, almost…

DS: Yeah, almost. I mean… yeah, no, it was a very thin line. It was like one of those planes that had a lot of luggage and just managed to get off the ground and stay off the ground. But, um, in a way we… we got left alone, and, you know… being less popular than we were, we wouldn’t be here now, and being more popular than we were, maybe there would have been forces pressing us that would have made us make decisions that would have been about, uh, sustaining the franchise or market share, or whatever.

RW: Now just, look, one thing to just follow on what David’s saying. That… the only people who know the big arc… is David and Ed, and the writers. We have no idea, we get the scripts, one by one, and we discover what’s happening with our character as it goes. So, it’s like it’s a full—

AF: Well, they have to tell me.

RW: Oh… lucky you!

* laughter *

AF: … that would be cruel.

RW: Because, you know, of course you see the heartbeat is Alexa, you know. I mean, she, she scans the world and brings in all these people. But, outside of those brains, these bodies, we just get to make these simple, minute behavioral choices that carry us through. You know, for Bunny, it was… you know, on one hand he was weary, and on the other hand he was passionate. And so, every time I looked at a script I tried to see what was going on, and how that... but that would only unfold one by one by one by one. And that was the beauty of working, working in this way, because we never got ahead of ourselves.
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