![]() Williams gave us some of TV’s most iconic characters. Riz Ahmed, who appeared on the 2016 HBO miniseries The Night Of with Williams, tells Rolling Stone: “This is a devastating loss. In addition to his acclaimed TV performances, Williams appeared in dozens of films, including 12 Years a Slave, The Gambler, Life During Wartime, and Inherent Vice. Edward Norton, who cast Williams in his 2019 adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel Motherless Brooklyn, wrote on Twitter that news of the actor’s death felt like being “punched in the gut.” In a time and an era when racism really, really was rampant, you’ve got this Black man who stands strong he’s respected, and that was rare in those days.” I love what he represents for - I guess, I would say, my people. He has similarities to Omar in certain kind of ways. ![]() I’ll never forget Marty - you know, Scorsese - he was like, ‘Go right there. ” I remember in the beginning, when we filmed, I was shocked that a Black man was walking and talking the way Chalky was in 1920. “I’ve learned a lot from ,” Williams told Esquire in 2011. “I wanted to pay homage to my ancestors, to anybody who’s alive today, any Black men that are alive today.” “I wanted to bring dignity to him, in spite of all his flaws, and I wanted people to understand why he does the things that he does,” Williams told Rolling Stone in 2013. In 2010, he began his stint as Chalky White, one of the head gangsters and de facto leader of Atlantic City’s African American community in the Prohibition-set HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Our struggle with ourselves, internally, and each other.” “But for us we aimed to take that moment in time together and say something about Black men. “ The Wire brought us together and immortalized Omar & Bunk in that ‘scene’ on a park bench,” Pierce added. “A immensely talented man with the ability to give voice to the human condition portraying the lives of those whose humanity is seldom elevated until he sings their truth.” “The depth of my love for this brother can only be matched by the depth of my pain learning of his loss,” Williams’ co-star Wendell Pierce wrote on Twitter. We may not agree with each other’s lifestyles, but if a person is upfront about who they are, they gain respect.” He’s a standard dude with morals and a code … That’s all we want to be around: real people. “It works because Omar doesn’t apologize for who he is he doesn’t try to hide it. “I’d been concerned about how my community were willing to receive me playing such an openly gay character,” Williams told The Guardian. ![]() I was a street dancer, and I got to do what I did in the nightclubs of New York City … I’m a kid from the streets of Brooklyn who got paid to travel the world.” “People misconstrue when I say I was a dancer,” he told The Guardian in 2012. Prior to his acting career, the Brooklyn-born Williams became a dancer who worked with George Michael and Madonna, among others, before earning bit parts in The Sopranos, Law & Order and R. “They ask for your privacy while grieving this unsurmountable loss.” “It is with deep sorrow that the family announces the passing of Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams,” Shafran said in a statement. A cause of death was not immediately revealed, pending the results of the city’s medical examiner. A rep for the New York Police Department added that Williams was found dead in his home in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn at approximately 2 p.m. Williams’ rep, Marianna Shafran, confirmed the actor’s death to Rolling Stone. Williams, the actor who portrayed stickup-man-cum-antihero Omar Little in The Wireand racketeer Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire, died Monday at the age of 54.
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