Michael K.
Williams broke barriers play a gay, Black man on The Wire, and had
wrapped up another meaningful queer role in HBO’s Lovecraft Country shortly
before he died of a drug overdose in 2021. Now, his posthumous memoir is
revealing how he fought for his most iconic character’s queer scenes to be more
intimate and true-to-life.
Vulture obtained a lengthy excerpt from Scenes
From My Life, co-written by Jon Sternfeld, detailing how Williams got the
role as Omar Little in David Simon’s gritty Baltimore-based drama.
The actor detailed
his initial hesitance at playing a gay character (an identity Williams himself did not
share), chalking it up to “my upbringing, the community that raised me, and the
stubborn stereotypes of gay characters.”
But Omar
wasn’t any kind of stereotype, and Williams soon not only embraced the role but
says he was the one ultimately pushing for scenes between him and his boyfriend, Brandon (Michael Kevin Darnall) to be physically
intimate in the way heterosexual couples were readily allowed to be on TV.
“It seemed
like everyone was dancing around their intimacy issue. There was lots of
touching hair and rubbing lips and things like that,” he recalled. “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 says
“the issue boiled over” for him after a point, so he approached Darnall and
suggested they take things into their own hands, adding a kiss into a scene
that didn’t explicitly call for it. He got Darnall to agree to bypass the
director and just go for it during rehearsal — and it worked.
“When I went
in and kissed Michael on the lips, everyone stopped what they were doing and
went slack-jawed. Twenty years ago, men — especially men of color — were
not kissing on television. I don’t mean it was rare; I mean it
did not happen,” he wrote.
Their bold
move convinced the director to film the scene with the kiss included, with
Williams (and Darnall) to thank.
Scenes from My
Life officially hit shelves last week and
is currently available to purchase for anyone hoping to learn more about the
late actor’s life and career in his own words.
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