LITTLE BIG MAN (REMEMBERING MICHAEL K WILLIAMS)

 

If you were to think of HBO's 'The Wire,' the chances are one of the first images that comes to mind is of Omar Little.

Michael K Williams' character was like a modern day Robin Hood - a gay outlaw roaming the streets of Baltimore in a trench coat with a 12 gauge shotgun, whistling 'The Farmer in the Dell' as he paid little heed to the local drugs gangs' rules of the street.

It was a career defining role, marking Williams out as an actor who would go on to become one of the most exciting TV actors of his generation.

Born in Flatbush, New York to an American dad and a mum from the Bahamas, he got a taste for performing as a teenager in the National Black Theatre after getting into some trouble in his youth.

However he initially pursued a career in pharmaceuticals working for Pfizer before quitting the security of his job to forge a career as a dancer - much to the dismay of his family.

Williams went from a comfortable life to being occasionally homeless as he built a career in dancing, auditioning for record labels and dance studios 

Persistence paid off and he landed a gig as a backing dancer for Kym Syms' tour for the dance anthem 'Too Blind To See It'.

This opened further doors and soon he was working with George Michael and Madonna and choreographed Crystal Waters' hit '100% Pure Love'.

After being discovered by the rapper Tupac Shakur, Williams was given his first movie acting role.

He played a henchman to Tupac's drug lord in Julien Temple's 1996 crime drama 'Bullet' with Mickey Rourke, Adrien Brody and Donnie Wahlberg.

Roles followed in episodes of the NBC hit crime drama 'Law and Order' in 1997 and two years later as a drug dealer in Martin Scorsese's underrated paramedic drama 'Bringing Out the Dead' with Nicolas Cage, John Goodman and Ving Rhames.

Williams landed another part in an episode of 'Law and Order' in 2001 and NBC's journalism drama 'Deadline' with Oliver Platt .

There was also a brief appearance that year as Ray Ray - an associate of Jackie Aprile Jr in the HBO gangster drama 'The Sopranos'.

It was to pave the way for his best known role as Omar Little in David Simon's classic Baltimore urban drama series 'The Wire' who he would play in all five seasons from 2002 to.

A stick up man with his own moral code, Omar's iconic status was cemented early on with warnings on the streets of the city that he was about to arrive.

The role have Williams immediate cult status but he struggled to adjust to fame and being recognised on the street, developing a taste for cocaine.

He later told The Guardian newspaper in a 2015 interview his addiction was so bad, he got evicted from the Brooklyn housing project where he lived after the money from the first series dried up.

Williams was living rough again and the lines between fact and fiction were blurring.

By the time he shot Omar's final scenes in the fifth season in 2008, he observed he was so consumed by the part: "I was in a different place in life 

"I was using Omar as a means of escape. Now I don't use my job to define me. It's what I do, not who I am.

"I have that understanding now."

Now firmly on the radar of casting directors there were roles between 2003 and 2005 in episodes of NBC's crime drama 'Third Watch,' ABC's action thriller 'Alias' and 'Boston Legal,'  CBS's 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' and in George C Wolfe's acclaimed HBO TV movie 'Lackawanna Blues' with Terrence Howard, Carmen Ejogo, Mos Def and Jimmy Smits, in which he played the boyfriend of Macy Gray's character Pauline. 

In 2004, Williams played one of two gunmen suspected of shooting a seven year old boy in Preston A Whitmore II's movie 'Doing Hard Time' with Boris Kodjoe, Steven Bauer and Giancarlo Esposito.

He was among the cast in all three parts of R Kelly's 2005 operatic movie 'Trapped in the Closet' and its 2007 and 2012 comedy drama follow-ups, starring the singer, which drew baffled reviews from the critics and also appeared in Eric Allen Bell's wayward youth tale 'Bondage' starring Michael Angaralo, Griffin Dunne and Illeana Douglas.

He also racked up an appearance in the 2006 Direct to DVD Steven Seagal action vehicle 'Mercenary for Justice' which was shot in South Africa.

There were appearances in 2006 in three episodes of ABC's New York neighbourhood drama 'Six Degrees' in 2006 with Jay Hernandez, Erika Christensen, Campbell Scott and Bridget Moynahan and in an episode of NBC's 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Between 2007 and 2010, Williams notched up TV roles in episodes of Spike TV's Navy SEALS drama 'The Kill Point' with Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, MTV's comedy sketch show 'Human Giant,' CBS's 'CSI: NY' with Gary Sinise and 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' and NBC's action drama 'The Philanthropist' with James Purefoy.

Chris Rock directed him in the poorly received 2007 romcom 'I Think I Love My Wife' among a cast that included the director, Kerry Washington, Gina Torres and Steve Buscemi which barely recouped it's $11 million budget.

There was another cinematic role in Ben Affleck's acclaimed 2007 kidnapping thriller 'Gone, Baby Gone' with Michelle Monaghan, Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman.

Williams got a taste of what it is like to be in a Marvel franchise film in 2008, with a role in Louis Letterier's 'The Incredible Hulk' with Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson and Ty Burrell which did reasonably well at the box office.

Spike Lee directed him in the critically lambasted 2008 Second World War flop movie 'Miracle at St Anna' with Derek Luke and Michael Ealy about African American troops in a Tuscan village.

In 2009, there were appearances in Michael Cuesta's sci-fi horror movie 'Tell-Tale' with Josh Lucas and Brian Cox, Scott Rosenbaum's much derided musical drama 'The Perfect Age of Rock N'Roll' with Kevin Zegers and Peter Fonda,  Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones hip hop crime drama 'A Day in the Life' with Omar Epps and Mehki Pfifer which drew decent notices and Todd Solondz's most well received indie flick 'Life During Wartime' with Ally Sheedy, Allison Janney and Ciaran Hinds.

He also surfaced that year in Michael A Pinckney's largely ignored horror movie 'You're Nobody Till Somebody Kills You,' Joshua Grodin's dark comedy 'Wonderful World' with Matthew Broderick, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Philip Baker Hall which drew mixed reviews and also played a thief in John Hillcoat's much admired big screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's dystopian tale 'The Road' with Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron.

In 2010, he was back working for Martin Scorsese again, playing the African American Atlantic City mobster Chalky White for five seasons of HBO's acclaimed period gangster drama 'Boardwalk Empire' with Steve Buscemi, Kelly MacDonald, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg and Stephen Graham.

Throughout its run, Williams continued to rack up appearances in shows like ABC's police procedural 'Detroit 1-8-7' with Michael Imperioli, the Cartoon Network's adult animation 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force,' as a biology teacher in NBC's Colorado community college sitcom 'Community,' and Fox's adult animated shows 'High School USA' and 'Lucas Bros Moving Company'.

In Antoine Fuqua's 2010 police movie 'Brooklyn's Finest' with Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke, he played a gangster but the film drew mixed reviews, making a modest profit.

Williams appeared in Sheldon Candis' 2012 crime drama 'LUV' with Common, Danny Glover, Dennis Haysbert and Lonette McKee which set neither critics nor audiences alight.

In Steve McQueen's 2013 Best Picture Oscar winning 'Twelve Years A Slave,' he joined an accomplished cast that included Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Sarah Paulson, Alfre Woodard, Scoot McNairy, Paul Giamatti and Brad Pitt.

As well as making a raft of short films, Williams played a dangerous drug dealer in Ric Roman Waugh's action thriller 'Snitch' with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Barry Pepper and Jon Bernthal which performed well at the box office despite mixed reviews.

He had the lead role in a 2013 comedy webseries 'Walk This Way' in which he played the Reverend Jack Daniels, the pastor of a celebrity church in Los Angeles.

There was a role as Joel Kinnaman's former police colleague in Jose Padilla's 2014 reboot of 'Robocop' with Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish and Samuel L Jackson which failed to live up to critical expectations, even if it attracted handsome box office receipts.

Williams also had eye catching roles in James de Monaco's successful horror franchise sequel 'The Purge: Anarchy' as the leader of a group opposed to the purge, as a drug trafficker in Michael Cuesta's well received journalism thriller 'Kill the Messenger' with Jeremy Renner, as a loan shark in Rupert Wyatt's 'The Gambler' with Mark Wahlberg and as a Black Power activist in Paul Thomas Anderson's much admired counterculture neo-noir 'Inherent Vice' with Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short.

In 2015, Williams played Jack Gee, the first husband of the blues singer Bessie Smith in Dee Rees' critically lauded HBO biopic 'Bessie' with Queen Latifah, Mo'nique and Ma Rainey which earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series or Movie.

Jerry Jameson's thriller 'Captive' saw him play a Detective opposite David Oyelowo and Kate Mara in a poorly received, low budget indie movie that barely made a profit.

The actor Tim Blake Nelson directed him, Sam Waterston, Glenn Close, Kristen Stewart, Gretchen Mol and Corey Stoll in the indie drama  'Anesthesia' which examined the circumstances around a mugging but it was mostly confined to a video on demand release after lukewarm reviews.

The following year he joined Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon and Michael Sheen in the Funny Or Die comedy series 'The Spoils Before Dying' which aired on IFC in the United States in which he played a jazz pianist turned private eye who gets sucked into a murder investigation.

There were three series between 2016-18 of the Sundance Channel's series 'Hap and Leonard' in which he played a gay Vietnam War vet with anger issues who gets into scrapes alongside James Purefoy's conscientious objector who spent time in jail.

The show drew a cult following and decent reviews, with appearances from the likes of Christina Hendricks, Brian Dennehy, Andrew Dice Clay and Louis Gossett Jr. but was eventually cancelled.

In 2016 Williams also memorably played a Rikers Island prisoner in Steven Zallian and Richard Price's gripping HBO miniseries 'The Night Of' with Riz Ahmed, John Turturro, Jeannie Berlin and Bill Camp for which he received another Emmy nomination.

He also hosted a VICELAND factual series 'Black Market with Michael K Williams' in which over two seasons he came across real life drug dealers, thieves, gun runners and poachers.

He landed the role of Agent Hawkes in Paul Feig's all female reboot of 'Ghostbusters' with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth and worked again with John Hillcoat on his underwhelming action thriller 'Triple 9' with Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Kate Winslet, Gal Gadot and Woody Harrelson.

There were roles too in Stephen Caple Jr's indie teen drama 'The Land' which got mixed reviews, Jon Cassar's psychological drama 'When the Bough Breaks' with Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall which took a critical hammering and Justin Kurzel's misguided attempt to make a movie out of the video game 'Assassin's Creed' with Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Irons.

In Dustin Lance Black's 2017 ABC's well received miniseries 'When We Rise' about LGBT rights from the 1970s to the 2010s, he joined s cast that included Guy Pearce, Rachel Griffiths, Dylan Walsh, Whoopi Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce and Mary Louise Parker, portraying the activist Ken Jones.

There was a recurring role between 2017 to 2021 as a vending machine business owner in Netflix's adult animated comedy 'F is for Family' whose voice cast included Bill Burr, Laura Fern, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney.

In 2018, Williams fronted an acclaimed Emmy nominated Vice factual documentary 'Raised in the System' and also appeared in TBS's comedy anthology 'The Guest Book'.

Emilio Estevez directed him in the well regarded movie 'The Public' alongside Alec Baldwin, Jena Malone and Christian Slater in which he played a homeless man who leads a sit-in occupation in a library.

He was the mentor to Trevor Jackson's Youngblood Priest in the remake of the blacksploitation classic 'Superfly' which underperformed commercially and critically.

Edward Norton cast him as a trumpet player in his classy 2019 film noir tale 'Motherless Brooklyn' with Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, Bruce Willis and Bobby Cannavale.

In Gideon Raf's spy thriller 'The Red Sea Diving Resort,' he played an Ethiopian Jew working with Chris Evans' Mossad agent to evacuate members of his community from Africa.

However the film, which also starred Ben Kingsley and Alessandro Nicola, fell short of expectations and ended up on Netflix.

He popped up in 'When They See Us,' Ava Du Vernay's 2019 Netflix miscarriage of justice miniseries about the Central Park Five, playing Bobby McCray - the father of Caleel Harris' Antron whose insistence that his son tell the police what they want to hear has devastating consequences for his son.

It earned him yet another nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role at the Emmys.

There was a role as Jonathan Majors' secretive father in HBO's 2020  horror drama 'Lovecraft Country' with Jurnee Smollett and Courtney B Vance for which he won a Hollywood Critics Association TV Award and was nominated for another Emmy in 2021.

Williams played Bob Dylan in Spike Jonze live documentary 'Beastie Boys Story' for Apple+ TV.

He scored a streaming hit with Clark Duke's neo noir 'Arkansas' on Netflix with Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn and Vivica A Fox in which he played another drug dealer called Almond.

There was a role too in John Leguizamo's college chess movie 'Critical Thinking' whose release was ruined by the Covid-19 lockdown but which drew enthusiastic reviews.

2021 saw him earn decent reviews from movie critics in John Swab's crime drama 'Body Brokers' with Jack Kilmer, Melissa Leo and Peter Greene.

Williams had made two films - Anthony Mandler's Western 'Surrounded' and Abi Daramis Corbin's thriller '892' with John Boyega - before his shocking death in a suspected drug overdose.

A week before his death he had been cast as the boxer George Foreman's trainer Doc Broadus in a biopic.

Not only has his untimely death robbed us of that performance but we are left to speculate about what other great roles he might have taken on. 

But what cannot be denied is that over the course of the past 25 years, he left a series of electric performances on the big and small screen that will mesmerise future generations to come.

(Michael K Williams passed away at the age of 54 on September 6, 2021)