Actor Michael K. Williams, known for his role as Omar Little on The Wire and Chalky White onBoardwalk Empire (but unfortunately not his part in the upcoming Han Solo movie), has signed on to stay working with HBO and join a the new season of Vice, the network’s Emmy-winning weekly news magazine. Williams will undergo a “personal journey to expose the root of the American mass incarceration crisis: the juvenile justice system,” perDeadline.
This won’t be the first time that Williams has worked with Vice. He has also starred in another deeply personal show produced by the media company, Black Market, in which he explores the dangerous world of illicit trade throughout the world.
Williams’ episode for the HBO Vice news show will open out its sixth season and will premiere on April 6. The show will include 35 episodes that will focus on a variety of different topics relevant to society today. Besides Williams’s look at mass incarceration and the juvenile justice system, Vice will report on the white supremacy movement in America, Chicago’s gang violence, as well as the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar, and “communities and ethnic groups displaced by violence and now fighting for a home in contested lands from Afghanistan to the Central African Republic.”
Williams has been using his platform to speak about important issues for years now. In 2016, he appeared alongside Michael B. Jordan, Danny Glover, and more in a PSA about the police brutality crisis in America.
Besides his work with Vice, Williams is also busy with his film career. The actor was recently confirmed to play Scatter in the Director X-led remake of Superfly. The remake has plenty of other high-profile names attached: Future is set to be co-producing the movie, and Jason Mitchell and Trevor Jackson are set to star.
