Dominic West

13/08/2009

The Wire star on road rage, hallucinogenics and the genius of the show that made him

by Adam Forrest

Playing Jimmy McNulty, the heaviest-drinking detective in TV history, has made Dominic West something very close to a major star. Perhaps it’s the hardworking five years spent on The Wire, but West, who turns 40 in October, has yet to learn to act like one. The lively, self-deprecating actor is perfectly happy to concede his subservience to the show’s grand, over-arching ambition to chart the misfortunes of the US city of Baltimore – the real tragic hero of the series. “Among the principal actors, we all had the same trailer – we all got treated like shit,” he jokes. “We were all subordinate to the writing.”

So much has been made of West’s incongruous Englishness and his education at Eton, it’s no longer startling to hear that refined Estuary accent (more Tony Blair than Anthony Quayle). Since McNulty spent much of The Wire pissing people off with his cynicism and obstinance, the only surprise is to find West so relentlessly upbeat and care-free.

He’s at home in west London when we speak, spending time with his daughter and learning lines for a play about a man who has spent years chained to a rock in Poland. “He takes something called henbane – which I think is a hallucinogenic – but I haven’t done any first-hand research,” he cackles. 

West does not seem the slightest bit phased by his new-found fame, amused that he’s been recognised by both the local drug dealer and neighbourhood policeman. “I didn’t really realise the impact of The Wire until the last year or two, back in England,” he recalls. “I walked into my local shop – and everyone knew who I was!

“I remember being in my car and this woman was blocking the road, which made me really angry. So I wound down the window, with a touch of road rage, and shouted, ‘Get the fuck out the way!’ She looked at me, astonished, and said, ‘You’re McNulty!’”

It wasn’t really supposed to happen to West. Back at the inception of the show in 2001, the producers wanted Ray Winstone for McNulty, but he didn’t fancy committing to life in Baltimore (creator David Simon already had a five-season story arc in his head). “Like most things in my life, it seemed to happen by accident,” says West. “I wish I could say I realised how great it all was immediately, but I sort of fell into it by mistake.

“I thought it seemed really interesting, but I didn’t really want to live in America for five years either. I sent them a funny tape of me doing a scene – a kind of Robert De Niro impression – and they flew me over. I felt so indebted to them. I felt I couldn’t back out.

“Within five days I was standing with a real Baltimore cop in the trauma unit with a guy who’d been shot eight times. The family was there. I was standing there like a lemon, hoping no one would talk to me, because I was still figuring out the accent.” Although The Wire failed to find cable network HBO the large viewing audience enjoyed by The Sopranos and Sex and the City, it steadily amassed an evangelical following through DVD box sets and word of mouth. Critics began to notice this was much more than just another cop show.

Academics marvelled at the forensic examination of institutional failure: the picking apart of council politics, the courts, the unions, the school system and the decline of newspapers. Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson lauded the programme as “truly exceptional… I do not hesitate to say that it has done more to enhance our understandings of the challenges of urban life and urban inequality than any other media event or scholarly publication”.

There was more immediate acclaim in Baltimore itself, especially in the drug-torn neighbourhoods that writers David Simon and Ed Burns had covered extensively in their previous lives as a journalist and police officer.

“Filming in the hood was great,” West grins. “They were very cool and always looked after us. They’d all seen the show, which HBO couldn’t quite understand because it wasn’t showing up in the viewing figures. They’d pirated it!

“Ed Burns knew everyone. Donnie, the godfather of his child, is the model for Omar (The Wire’s homosexual, machine gun-wielding loner). Donnie wasn’t gay, but he was a stick-up man. Ed banged him up for 20 years and now they’re best of friends.”


Despite Simon’s dogged pursuit of authenticity, West wasn’t the only actor from the across the pond. Idris Elba (drug kingpin Stringer Bell), Aiden Gillen (Mayor Tommy Carcetti) and Clarke Peters (Detective Lester Freamon) are all from, or based in, the UK, and found a common bond. Peters recalls the sense of “mission” among the actors about the larger purpose of the work, but concedes they all got to know the local bars a little too well. “Dominic and those boys wore me out man!” concedes Peters.

“The cast were all close,” West remembers. “Actually, Idris tried to avoid me at first – he didn’t want to speak to anyone English because he was trying to get the accent. With the guys living away from home, we lived in the same apartment block. For the first few years we enjoyed ourselves and it was great, then we all wanted to kill each other!”

Was he ready for it to be over by the end of the fifth season? “I was ready by the end of season one!” he hoots. “I missed home a lot, particularly my daughter, so I was always trying to do a bit less each season. Also, I’m a bit of an idiot who didn’t realise what a good thing I was in.”

West has since become a familiar face on British television, playing Penicillin’s true inventor Howard Florey and puritan warrior Oliver Cromwell. The latter role caused raised eyebrows at home – his wife and parents are both Irish (and West’s McNulty made a lot of his Irish ancestry in The Wire). Controversial or not, interesting parts are hard to come by.

Like many of his Wire colleagues, West is spoiled by the quality of Simon’s writing. Recent film work includes 300, Hannibal Rising and a role as the villain Jigsaw in The Punisher, but he sounds ambivalent about the US blockbusters.

“I suppose that’s what I should be doing more of, isn’t it? I should have a big gun in my hand and head for Hollywood!” he laughs. “But I’m committed to my family here and, actually, I don’t like doing those sorts of parts – it’s quite dull. I get lots of offers to play cops and villains. That’s the way your career goes – you start off as a lover in romantic comedy stuff and then round about the age of 35, you start getting offered parts as a villain.” Perhaps West has a bit of McNulty’s bloody-mindedness. Prior to The Wire, he had appearances as the “drunken arsehole English boyfriend” opposite Sandra Bullock  in 28 Days and and Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile. On the verge of stardom but unsatisfied, he gave it all up and joined the circus. Seriously.

The actor spent five “fun” months with acrobatic Argentine troupe De La Guarda. An Etonian with a Sheffield-Irish upbringing; an Englishman at home in the hood; a lover, fighter and trapeze artiste – West seems to enjoy defying expectations.

“Wherever you’ve come from, I think everybody has to overcome their background,” he says. “On The Wire I wasn’t just a white guy – I was a Brit. I was a complete outsider, which is a good place to be because there’s no prejudice about you.

“I had an ordinary middle-class suburban Sheffield upbringing – I wasn’t down a mine! It was a bit of a culture shock going to Eton, I was around upper-class people. I brag about coming from Sheffield – people think I’m a lot more gritty than I actually am!”  West now wants to do more directing after getting a taste on one of the final episodes of The Wire. He describes Simon’s new project Treme, set in New Orleans’ cultural quarter after the hurricane, as “The Wire with music”.

“There’s a very straight-laced gay couple – middle-class suburbanites ­–  who’ve just moved in to Treme and tell everyone to turn the music down,” he says. “I told David I could play that character, but he didn’t want me!  “He’s promised me one episode to direct, so I’m going to hold him to that. And he might give me a cameo at some stage.

“He’s an amazing, amazing man,” West continues. “You get a sense that he’s one of the best writers in the world. I’m definitely trying to hang in there with him as long as possible.”

The final season of The Wire starts on Wednesday, August 19 on BBC Two