Essence.com: Congrats on The Wire. You ready for the new season to start?
Michael Kenneth Williams: I’m extremely looking forward to it. This will be our fifth and final season. We’ll close out the story. I’m really excited to see where David and Ed are, David Simon and Ed Burns are going to go with it. I’m looking forward to moving on also, although I have fallen in love with the city of Baltimore.
Essence.com: What do you love about Baltimore?
M.K.W.: Oh, God, where do you want me to begin? The city and the culture. I love the food. I love the people. I love the music.
Essence.com: Is there anything you can tell us about the fifth season of The Wire?
M.K.W.: Well, I can tell you that Omar is a man of his word, and he gave his word, and that’s going to be very hard to keep with someone like Marlo hot on his heels. I don’t know where they going to go with that. I don’t know. I’m really interested to see where they’re going to go with the mayor, with Carcetti, and how is he going to deal with all these bodies, you know, and they’re washing up, and how is the city going to perceive him, and how he deals with this. I’m really interested to see where they’re going to go with that.
Essence.com: Now we know you were in I Think I Love My Wife with Chris Rock. What else do you have going on?
M.K.W.: Oh, I got a bunch of stuff. I am in Ben Affleck’s directorial debut. It’s called, Gone, Baby Gone. It’s a murder mystery. I play a detective from Boston and I’m trying to find out who killed the little lady. I had a lot of fun working with that. We got some good company: Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris. So, really good company. And he (Ben Affleck) was a blast to work with. Most of my scenes (are) with his brother Casey Affleck, another phenomenal actor (laughs).
Essence.com: You started out as a dancer then Tupac asked you to read for a role in Bullet. Tell us about your transition from dance to film.
M.K.W.: I was a dancer-choreographer. I was actually on tour with Chris, and we were scheduled for a three-week tour to go to Germany and Japan, and that same day I got a call, that Thursday, really that Friday, I got a call that Thursday to stay to shoot a Madonna video, “Secret.” I asked can I stay home and shoot the video and basically it was either come that Friday or miss the tour. So I stayed home and shot the video. And within that time I was home, Tupac had saw my picture and asked if I could come down and read the role of his brother in Bullet, and kind of got the ball rolling.
Williams recently wrapped Ego an independent film co-starring Eve. He will also release a record as his HBO character, Omar, in conjunction with the last season.
Photo Credit: WireImage.com