Michael K. Williams
May Not Be The King, But He’s Still One of
the Best
Williams so
inhabited the role of Omar, the stickup man with a code on The Wire that it’s hard to imagine what he could possibly do to
make us forget it. If he hasn’t quite accomplished that, in the past decade he
has demonstrated the ability he had to create some of the most memorable
characters ever assembled.
He began the decade
as ‘Chalky’ White, the African-American labor/crime boss who commanded respect
even from Nucky Thompson on Boardwalk
Empire, despite his own illiteracy
and what would eventually be his own moral undoing. He took on the role of
Leonard in Sundance’s undervalued Hap
& Leonard series. A gay, black Republican who loved his Nilla Wafers,
Leonard was the moral center of two friends who were constantly involved in
chaos on either side of the criminal world. In the limited series, The Night of, he created a memorable,
literate con who protected Naz in prison, and eventually became as much a
burden as his own crime – a role that finally earned him his first Emmy
nomination. He earned another this past year, playing Bobby McCray, the ex-con
stepfather of Anton, whose experience with the police make him persuade his
stepson to plead guilty, and whose lack of response both before and after his
trial leads to the biggest guilt.
Williams has
already created some of the most indelible character portrayals even among a
medium and era that has been better than it ever has for African-American
actors, something that probably wouldn’t have happened without Omar. I can’t
wait to see what come next for him. I’m hoping an Emmy finally comes, but as
Omar would put it, ‘the game is the game’.
Regina King
Started the Decade A Cop, Ended It A
Superhero
Regina King was a
good actress in her early years, who couldn’t find roles worthy of her. So,
like so many other great African-American actresses would – Taraj P. Henson,
Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis – she went to TV. And she’s never had to look
for work for long since.
She began the
decade as an LA detective on the critically acclaimed series Southland, a show that NBC dumped and
TNT picked up for four seasons afterward. But network TV would launch her to
her greatest heights. In the incredible limited series American Crime, the anthology series that was the closest thing
network TV ever had to The Wire, she
was by far its biggest star. Whether as the Muslim sister of an accused
murderer, the middle-class parent of a teenage star accused of a homosexual
rape, or a social worker trying to rescued young people from human trafficking,
she made every role her own, and infused them with a humanity that could not be
suppressed. She deservedly won two Supporting Actress Emmys for her work on
that series
Her next work was
on Seven Seconds, a Netflix original
series about a racially charged police shooting and the aftermath. The series
was cancelled after one season, but her work didn’t go unnoticed: she won
another Emmy, this time for Best Actress in a Limited Series..
While she was
working on American Crime, she took
on the role of a troubled mother of a disappeared family living in a small town
that wasn’t affected by the Departure on The
Leftovers. Her part was small, but it was indelible to Damon Lindelof, who
has cast her as Angela, the cop/superhero at the center of Watchmen. And in between, she finally won an Oscar.
King is one of the
great actresses I’ve ever seen in any medium. She has a vitality and a
sexuality that doesn’t seem to have left her even as she enters her fifties. I
already know there’s nothing she can’t play. And even if Watchmen is, as Lindelof has suggested, a one season series, I know
that won’t stop this actress, who is definitely more powerful than a
locomotive.
Katie Stevens
Normally They’re Not This Great, This Soon
It may seem a
little soon to call an actress who hasn’t even reached 27 yet one of the
greatest of this decade, even though this is one that has been kind to a lot of
younger and talented actors. But Stevens in particular has already revealed
that she may be in a once in a generation talent.
In 2014, the world
became aware of her on the incredible MTV series Faking It. An astonishing piece of work, Stevens and Rita Volk
played Karma and Amy, a pair of bestie teenagers in Austin who find themselves impersonating
lesbians in order to try and become popular in their high school run by
outsiders. Though the entire cast was outstanding, Stevens’ work as Karma, a
girl who found herself in a bizarre triangle between her, Karma and Leon was
fascinating because she was always at the center of it. Alas, the series’
premature cancellation after three seasons left everything unresolved, and a
gaping hole in my heart.
But Stevens landed
on her feet, on an even more brilliant series, Freeform’s The Bold Type. Playing Jane, the journalist at the fashion magazine
Scarlet, she has gone through some of
the deeper struggle of any of the characters, having to deal with a health
issue that could damage any chance of being a mother. Again, all of the
characters – especially the two other female leads – are outstanding, and it is
credit to Stevens that she has landed on the series that Sex and the City and Girls tried
to be, but never came close to pulling off.
Stevens is a hell
of a find, and since it looks like The
Bold Type could run for a while, there’s no chance she’ll be out of work
soon. But I can’t wait to see where she lands next.
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