Michael K. Williams Is More Than Omar From ‘The Wire’<br />After Omar, he was Chalky White, an Atlantic City bootlegger in “Boardwalk Empire” who reminded Mr. Williams of his father; then, in “The Night Of,” Freddy Knight, a Rikers Island inmate like his nephew Dominic Dupont;<br />and Ken Jones, a gay rights activist in “When We Rise,” whose battle with H. I.V.<br />“There are so many people here — beautiful and beautifully flawed people — and I want all of their stories to be told.”<br />It was a warm Friday afternoon in June, the 15th anniversary of the premiere of “The Wire,”<br />and Mr. Williams was back in East Flatbush to celebrate with some friends.<br />His first substantial acting role came courtesy of no less an authority than Tupac Shakur, who tapped Mr. Williams to play his brother in the 1996 film “Bullet.” Three<br />years later, he appeared as a drug dealer in Martin Scorsese’s “Bringing Out the Dead.” Then it was a brief cameo on “The Sopranos.” And finally, in 2002, “The Wire.”<br />Though his credentials were modest and his technique still unpolished, Mr. Williams immediately stood out in his audition.<br />“The way a lot of us from the neighborhood see it, Mike is like the prophet of the<br />projects,” said Darrel Wilds, 50, who grew up with Mr. Williams in Vanderveer.<br />By NOAH REMNICKJUNE 30, 2017<br />“The Wire,” HBO’s five-season epic of Baltimore life, is a perennial contender for the greatest television series ever,<br />and Michael K. Williams, in his role as the stickup man Omar Little, its most memorable actor.
