All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

I was crushed, because I love the show. Wendell Pierce said to me, “You got to fight for your job.” I was like, “Well, what am I supposed to do? I can’t become detective overnight.” I don’t think it was every script, but David would put a few random scripts with a famous line from a movie, and just for fun, you’d see if people would figure it out, and Wendell had figured one out and he gave me the answer. He said, “Go tell David you know what the line is.” I was really nervous, and I go up to David and I say, “David, there’s a line in one of the scripts that says, ‘Let’s go.’ And the other guy says, ‘Why not?’ Is that line from The Wild Bunch?” David does this double take, and he looked me up and down, he’s like, “Ha, well, how did you know that?” I was like, “Oh, I was just guessing. Am I right?” For a second I was like, Oh, my God. Okay, I’m going to make detective. He’s going to change the roles. He was so impressed. He said, “Somebody told you.” I was like, “No, no. I’m right. Oh my God. I’m right.” I never told him that story, that Wendell told me the answer. Maybe he’ll find out from this. Anyway, it didn’t work, and I was finished on Season Two, but as you know, I came back and was peppered in through the years.

So funny