Michael Kenneth Williams
American actor (1966 - )
- || At The Bottom
1991 -- As he bled from two long gashes in his face and neck, Michael Kenneth Williams was unsure if he would live to see the next day. It was Williams' 25th birthday, and his friends had just rushed him to a Brooklyn hospital after he'd been attacked outside a bar where they were celebrating the occasion. Outside the bar entrance, one of Williams' friends had been surrounded by a group of men who were attempting to rob him. As he told an interviewer years later, "I stuck my nose in [and] the gentlemen didn't take too kindly to me sticking my nose in their business." They attacked him instead, slashing him with razor blades and putting his budding career, if not his life, in danger. Williams -- who had grown up in a rough Brooklyn housing project -- had been pursuing a career as a dancer and model and had recently begun getting small jobs dancing in music videos and modeling hip hop fashion. "I was going happily in the direction the universe was taking me," Williams remembers, when the bar attack changed everything. Even with plastic surgery, he would likely have permanent scarring.
- || At The Top
2008 -- Michael K. Williams held a shotgun, demanding that the young man at the poker table surrender the ring on his finger. The man looked up at him without moving. "Boy," said Williams, "you must have me confused with a man who repeats himself." As the HBO crime drama The Wire completed its fourth season, Omar Little -- played to perfection by Michael K. Williams -- was one of the most popular characters, and Williams' portrayal of the character had received almost universal acclaim from critics. As Little, Williams played a stick-up artist with a peculiar moral code: He only robbed drug dealers like Marlo Stanfield, the ruthless kingpin whose ring Little took midway through the fourth season. "If you'd have told me seven years ago that this character was going to warrant this type of attention," Williams told NPR's Terry Gross in 2008, "I'd have said get the hell out of here. But the fact that this character has been so well received has been humbling. It's an honor to be a part of something so beautiful and so revered within the industry." For his work in the fourth season, Williams would receive a NAACP Image Awards nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series. The Wire itself received consistently high reviews; numerous critics regarded it as the best show on television. During his presidential run in 2008, Barack Obama told a newspaper reporter that The Wire was his favorite show and that Omar Little was his favorite character.
- || The Comeback
Michael Williams' comeback came in fits and starts. He survived the birthday attack, and after his wounds healed, he was surprised to discover that some photographers and music video directors were still interested in him, though for different reasons. Strangely, enough, his new scars were intriguing from a certain vantage point. Though Williams would not recommend that people disfigure themselves to get acting work, the scars "definitely got the ball rolling." He no longer received offers to appear as a dancer, but he earned a few small roles -- usually playing thuggish characters -- in music videos. Eventually, he made appearances in episodes of Law and Order and The Sopranos, but he was still waiting for his break. In 2001, he returned to Brooklyn and was working in a daycare facility his mother managed when he received a call to audition for the character of Omar in a new series being produced for HBO. Initially, Williams assumed his character would only survive for a few episodes, but he eventually realized that Omar was being written in as a major character. Though his role had stabilized, Williams himself was still adjusting to the new career turn. He didn't manage his money well at first, and in 2002 fell behind on his rent and was evicted from his apartment. He moved to Los Angeles and slept on friends' couches while awaiting the next season of The Wire. He received several other roles in the meantime, including one in a series of rap videos by the artist R. Kelly that earned him a sizable income and got him back on his feet.
