Actor Michael K. Williams pushed for gay sex scenes on The Wire, the late actor wrote in his new memoir.
In an excerpt from Williams’ Scenes From My Life published in Vulture, Williams, who died last year at 54 of a drug overdose, said he grew frustrated that “everyone was dancing around [the] intimacy” between his character, Omar Little, and Omar’s lover, Brandon Wright, portrayed by Michael Kevin Darnall.
“There was lots of touching hair and rubbing lips and things like that,” Williams wrote. “I felt like if we were going to do this, we should go all in. I think the directors were scared, and I said to one of them, ‘You know gay people fuck, right?’”
Williams said he initiated an unscripted kiss with Darnall, after discussing it with him, in one scene, to the surprise of the crew and Clark Johnson, who was directing the episode.
“Twenty years ago, men—especially men of color—were not kissing on television,” Williams wrote. “I don’t mean it was rare; I mean it did not happen.”
The Wire, which was created by David Simon and ran on HBO from 2002 to 2008, is widely regarded as one of the greatest TV series of cable TV’s so-called “Golden Age.”
People magazine previously reported that Williams revealed in his memoir that by the second season of The Wire, he had relapsed into drug addiction. “On days I wasn’t shooting I started getting high on crack and cocaine again, until I was completely broke,” he revealed.
A critic for Kirkus called Scenes From My Life “a bittersweet memento of a generational talent gone too soon.” It was published last week by Crown.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
