Maxim Interrogates the Makers and Stars of The Wire

June 1, 2012 7:53 PM

Maxim Interrogates the Makers and Stars of The Wire
posted by kirkaracha (28 comments total)

"We had a taste of what The Wire was before The Wire came out when they did The Corner. It was like Star Trek compared to Star Wars. Star Trek was good, but you wanted to see more detail. I wanted to see some space fighting. When Star Wars came out it blew my fucking mind."

"I always went online to see the reactions that people would have after someone got killed. Snoop, when she got killed, oh you should’ve seen it. You would’ve thought somebody really died. Like it was a funeral happening: “RIP Snoop, we gon’ miss you,” and all this craziness. They were just two lines short of making “In Memory Of” T-Shirts. Same thing with Omar. Stringer, same thing. Then when I die, it’s like “good for him. They should’ve killed his ass sooner.”

Can I vote for Method Man for public office yet?
posted by 1f2frfbf at 8:06 PM on June 1, 2012 [9 favorites]

Great article. Can't believe it's been 10 years already. Time for another marathon.
posted by arcticseal at 8:24 PM on June 1, 2012

10 years already

what

but it just

why does this keep happening
posted by curious nu at 8:31 PM on June 1, 2012 [25 favorites]

Time to re-watch it.

Fourth time's the charm?
posted by flippant at 8:32 PM on June 1, 2012

Man, ten years I kept myself ignorant and now I've just been spoiled. Damn it, I knew I should have stayed in the bunker.
posted by mimo at 8:33 PM on June 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was ready to pass over this, thinking "Ugh, do we really need another article about the Wire?" Turns out we do, that was a good read.
posted by Lorin at 8:42 PM on June 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

Maxim.com: two pop-ups in the first 10 seconds. I'm out.
posted by neuron at 8:43 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Andre Royo: They called me and told me I got the part of Bubbles, and my wife got excited. “Oh, shit! You got the part!” Packing her bag for L.A., and I’m like, “Nah, nah, we filming in Baltimore.” And she unpacked real quickly: “I’ll see you when you come home.”

posted by curious nu at 8:52 PM on June 1, 2012 [16 favorites]

Some people see Petyr Baelish...

But I still see only Mayor Tommy Carcetti.
posted by thewalrus at 9:04 PM on June 1, 2012 [25 favorites]

Maxim.com: two pop-ups in the first 10 seconds. I'm out.

Adblock Plus
posted by thewalrus at 9:04 PM on June 1, 2012

So there are probably about a thousand reasons why I went into medicine, probably a thousand more why I've been working almost exclusively with IV drug users in Kensington for the last couple years, but every time I watch an episode of The Wire I wonder what the hell I'd be doing with my life if I hadn't seen the series.
posted by The White Hat at 9:21 PM on June 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Michael B. Jordan (Wallace, Barksdale gang dealer): This is some real shit. It was real to the point where crackheads would come up and try to cop. I had fake money, and they would come over, and an exchange would go down. I would think they were part of the crew, and I’d make the exchange. Then security would come around and be like, “No! No! No!” and break it up. I was like, “Oh, shit! That’s really a crack-head! I’m sorry! I’m not really a drug dealer!

posted by rewil at 9:41 PM on June 1, 2012 [9 favorites]

Some people see Petyr Baelish...

But I still see only Mayor Tommy Carcetti.

I think Aidan Gillen is a pretty good actor, because after getting used to him a few years ago as Carcetti, watching him now I really don't see any Carcetti in Littlefinger.

Idris Elba: We smoked a lot of good weed, did a lot of strip clubs. A lot of that.

For the night is dank and full of strippers

Oh help now I think I'm confused
posted by palidor at 9:58 PM on June 1, 2012

For the night is dank and full of strippers

Something something rises again harder and stronger.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:26 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic, but how in the ever living fuck does this end up in MAXIM???
posted by nestor_makhno at 11:04 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

By the way, I strongly believe that fans of The Wire will enjoy the documentary series on Newark, Brick City [prev]. The first season, thus far, is on Netflix DVD. A good chunk of it focuses on Cory Booker, so if you want to know what makes this likely future national figure tick, this is a good way. But they also follow -- in addition to a police chief and a principal -- ex-gang counselors, dads of homicide victims, and others who are directly on the front lines.

No McNulty or Bunk, though.
posted by dhartung at 12:13 AM on June 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

For the night is dank and full of strippers

Brother Mouzone will cut off your manhood and feed it to the goats.
posted by thewalrus at 12:43 AM on June 2, 2012

Dominic West: Socially, it did sort of polarize around cops and gangsters. The police tended to go out with police, and the gangsters tended to go out with the gangsters.

This is fascinating. The fictive and the real, that broken down old line.
posted by rudster at 2:22 AM on June 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ephelump Jockey: All I see in Aidan Gillen is Carcetti. His Brit accent is a total put-on and it bugs me.

Well, it's no more put on than his Carcetti, what with Gillen being Irish ...
posted by Len at 3:44 AM on June 2, 2012 [5 favorites]

My husband and I were talking about re-watching The Wire... and lo, our anniversary is next week.

"Paper" might be the traditional first anniversary present, but these are modern times and who even uses paper anymore? I move to replace paper with "DVD Box Set." Certainly spend more time on the couch together with the DVDs.
posted by sonika at 5:10 AM on June 2, 2012 [4 favorites]

Dominic West just won a Bafta for his role as Fred West in the utterly excellent Appropriate Adult (explanation of term). Well worth watching if you can.
posted by humph at 6:48 AM on June 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

No derail, Ephelump---the many U.K. actors doing American accents was one of the many pleasures of The Wire. Perhaps the funniest moment was in S2, when McNulty went undercover to the brothel and we got to enjoy seeing a British actor play an American cop faking a bad British accent.
Second only to the very funny moment in Buffy when the American actor playing British character Spike did a bad American accent: "my frrrriend Zanduuuhr heeeuuuhr".
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:53 AM on June 2, 2012 [4 favorites]

I do think it's funny that there's nothing in the interviews about the fifth season's plot.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:09 AM on June 2, 2012 [5 favorites]

So there are probably about a thousand reasons why I went into medicine, probably a thousand more why I've been working almost exclusively with IV drug users in Kensington for the last couple years, but every time I watch an episode of The Wire I wonder what the hell I'd be doing with my life if I hadn't seen the series.

They don't call it the Badlands for nothing. Scary, scary place.
posted by scalefree at 7:31 AM on June 2, 2012

I just watched the whole thing for the second time - unemployment allowed me to do this over a week or so. I then immediately watched all the episodes with commentaries, so third time for those. There's a lot of insight in those commentaries, though the one with Dominic West and Michael K. Williams focussed mainly on the relative beauty of the breasts in the show. I know there's a third run in my middling future.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 10:38 AM on June 2, 2012

I do think it's funny that there's nothing in the interviews about the fifth season's plot.

Maybe Larry David can get the Wire gang back together in the next season of Curb and give them a proper finale. Less Templeton, more Alma, please.
posted by blueberry at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2012

Tommy "little finger" Carcetti!

Every time I see Idris Elba I have to call out, "STRINGER BELL!" Stringer not only guards the gate of Azgard but he drive the spaceship Prometheus.
posted by Che boludo! at 8:02 PM on June 2, 2012

My wife and I finally started watching The Wire recently, and are finishing up season 3 now. What's really interesting is seeing characters that you know from other shows before they were on those shows.

Halfway through season 2, my wife exclaims almost out of nowhere "True Blood! That's where I know him from!"

Season 3, my wife: "Hey look, it's Littlefinger!"
Me: "Oh...oh! I almost didn't recognize him without the creepster mustache."

Lance Reddick was pretty obvious, of course, and also that guy in Cedar Rapids who does an impersonation of Omar Little from HBO's hit series The Wire. Sheeeeeeeit.
posted by mysterpigg at 9:23 AM on June 4, 2012