
ED BURNS SPEAKS SOME OF THE REALEST TALK YOU'VE HEARD IN YOUR LIFE. AND AS WRITER, PRODUCER, AND INSPIRATION FOR HBO'S THE WIRE, IT'S HIS CANDOR AND CONNECTIONS THAT MAKE THE SPRAWLING BALTIMORE CRIME SAGA NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET. NOW, AT THE DAWN OF THE SHOW'S FINAL SEASON, COMPLEX LOOKS AT THE MAN WHO BRINGS THE RAW UNCUT.
By Justin Monroe; Illustration by Sean Mccabe2002: ED BURNS HAS BEEN WATCHING HIM for a while now. Sitting a little ways off, just eyeballing the man with the scar snaking across his face. Something about the guy, Burns thinks, doesn't seem right. He's an actor, a damn fine one in fact, but the way he's holding his pistol-sidearm, with one hand, like something out of Menace II Society-is all wrong. After 20 years with the Baltimore Police Department, Burns knows how a no-nonsense stickup man would hold a pistol. So he sits down with the man, actor Michael K. Williams, there on the set of The Wire, and he shares a little street knowledge. He explains how Williams's character, the renegade bagman Omar Little, would handle his heat carefully, with two hands, to ensure that he hit no civilians. And Williams listens, because Burns knows the character. Hell, Omar is based on real guys Burns spent two decades playing cat-and-mouse with.
IN EPISODE 19, "ALL PROLOGUE," Stringer Bell orders the death of D'Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.), his partner Avon's imprisoned nephew. Burns and Simon had meant for D'Angelo to last longer on the show, but once they'd written him into a lengthy prison sentence, they realized he serve the story only by dying. We're sure that comforts his loved ones, "We gave him too much jail time," laments Burns.
IN EPISODE 36, “MIDDLE GROUND,” Omar (Williams) and hit man Brother Mouzone settle a score with Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) by gunning him down in his development site. Avenging the death of his slain lover, Omar was originally supposed to urinate on Bell’s corpse—but Elba protested the insult and had it taken out. Can you blame him for being a little pissy? “I think he got attached to Stringer Bell and couldn’t come to grips with what’s reality and what’s not,” says Michael K. Williams.
“I don’t think he was really mad at the scene, more like, ‘This is my home!’”
IN EPISODE 10, “THE COST,” shooters badly wound Det. Shakima Greggs (Sonja Sohn)during an ambush set up to murder a snitch. Initially, Greggs was supposed to die, but HBO convinced Simon and Burns not to kill off one of the show’s few primary females. Women’s lib strikes again. According to Andre Royo, who plays Bubbles, another Greggs informant:
“The powers that be were like, ‘We’re not trying to get rid of a sweet demographic hit right here. We got black, we got female, and we got lesbian!’”