Michael K. Williams as Omar

There is a nice article in Hiphopdx.com about the actor who plays Omar. Like most of the actors on the show, he is a quite impressive individual. He is a well trained actor and even mentions some specific technical aspects of character layer development.

DX: In terms of how complex of a character Omar is, on the one hand he says “Omar don’t scare,” but then we see him in jail and he looks really shook …
MKW: Hell yeah, Hell yeah. [Laughs] Let me tell you something… The line between fiction and reality is very thin. That was a real prison that we shot in and it was a room of 100 some odd extras banging on the walls saying they wanted to do all these evil things. At one point it just felt real, the cameras weren’t even there and a lot of energy was in the room, and it was just a weird feeling. I’ve never been in a prison in my life, so for me to be in there and to have all these people who I’ve maimed or robbed or hurt in some way, now they want to kill me. It was like putting a deer in a water full of alligators. And to have Donnie there and to look in his eyes and see something being brought to life in him… ‘Cause you know the scene after Omar shanks the dude in his ass and I leave the scene, right? So we did a couple takes of that, and I could feel it escalating. I would [usually] get off the set ‘til they called me to tape it again, but one take I said “Mike, just stop short and turn around and just embrace the scene,” and I turned around and Donnie was sitting in the middle of all them dudes, a sea of lions, and he had that knife and he was picking his nails with the shank and he looked like, “I’ll eat all y’all” it was just a look, real cool, almost like when a tsunami hit and all the water disappears, that real calm moment? He had that look on his face, and I could see that “I don’t ever wanna go there,” that look in his eyes was a very dark place. He’s a strong individual to be able to come back into that light from the darkness where he’s been. So there was a lot of energy in that prison that day.