'The Wire' Star Michael K. Williams Reveals the Toll Intense Roles Took on Him in Posthumous Memoir
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Actor Michael K. Williams fully committed himself to each of his roles—from Omar Little in HBO's The Wire to Montrose Freeman in sci-fi drama series Lovecraft Country—but the toll his dedication took on his emotional and mental health contributed to a downward spiral that eventually became his demise.
The Emmy award-winner opened up about some of his life experiences and struggle with substance abuse in his upcoming posthumous memoir, Scenes From My Life.
After attempting to break into the industry with little success, the opportunity for the role in 2002 drama The Wire presented itself. At age 35, Williams secured the character of Omar, rising to fame and gaining critical acclaim as he dove head-first into his portrayal of the Baltimore thief.
"At the Omar audition, I was so beat down emotionally. That's the most ironic thing. That f**k the world attitude helped get me the part," he wrote in PEOPLE's exclusive excerpt of the book, co-written by Jon Sternfeld.
It was his genuine desire to succeed at his craft that initially drove him to stay clean playing the iconic part. "Shooting in Baltimore for season 1, I was as sober as I'd ever been, barely even smoking weed. I treated the job like my life depended on it because in some ways it did," he divulged. "By that age, I'd been on the addiction/relapse merry-go-round enough to know how things could unravel once drugs entered the picture."
Though he knew the damage it could cause, the weight of portraying his on-screen character's pain and trauma became too heavy to bear in real life, throwing him back into a whirlwind of substance abuse to help him cope with straddling the fine line between fable and fact.
"A director calling 'cut' doesn't erase what you're feeling. Your mind feels the fictional the same way it feels the real," he explained. "That's the flip side of getting into a character; you wake up that sleeping beast. I meditate on painful things all day long for a scene and when it's over, it's little wonder I'm tempted to go off and smoke crack."
As he became a regular on subsequent seasons of the series, he found himself struggling even more with addiction. As his pockets grew fatter with the lucrative deal, so did his propensity for drug use.
"I had more money and more time on my hands," he wrote. "My demons had room to play. On days I wasn't shooting I started getting high on crack and cocaine again, until I was completely broke."
After his time on The Wire, the Brooklyn native would continue to book future roles that unfortunately led him down dark paths.
Shooting crime series The Night Of, which earned him an Emmy nomination, Williams played Freddy, a fearsome addict imprisoned for life, guiding a frightened new inmate on how to survive behind bars. His nephew's decades-long incarceration for a juvenile offense weighed heavily on him as he depicted the role. "The character stirred up so many issues for me that before the shoot ended, after around five years sober, I would cave in on myself," he said.
He then went on to explore generational Black trauma as a man who survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Lovecraft Country, earning him an additional Emmy nomination. The portrayal "put me through the wringer, mentally and emotionally," he wrote of the poignant role. Left on his own to shoot the series in Atlanta without a support system nearby, Williams admitted he turned to his "old standby."
Afterwards, he said, he "got into therapy and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, reconnected with my sponsor, and addressed my trauma head-on."
Prior to his untimely death, the 12 Years a Slave actor had turned a new leaf, directing his energy toward giving back through social justice activism and helping his community, where he felt he'd finally found true purpose.
"At around fifty years old, I figured out who I am," he wrote. "But now I have to figure out why I am. I made it. Great. Now what? What was it for? If my shoulders aren't strong enough for others to stand on, then I'm wasting my second chance."
The late star had appeared in several award-winning films and television shows throughout his career before passing away of an accidental fentanyl-laced overdose in September 2021. He was 54.
Williams' memoir, Scenes From My Life, releases everywhere books are sold on August 23.
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