Underappreciated Actors: Isiah Whitlock, Jr.
Filed Under (Movies) by admin on 01-05-2009
Tagged Under : Isiah Whitlock Jr., The Wire, Underappreciated Actors
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyit.
Corrupt black guy. I’m telling you, if you need an African American senator, congressman, police officer, DEA agent, FBI agent, lawyer, judge or parking meter attendant who is on the take, you call Isiah Whitlock, Jr.
This guy has corruption on lockdown and he is an absolute master of his trade. He can make you hate him in his sleep.
In The Wire, a show absolutely filled to the brim with talented and underappreciated actors, Whitlock stole the show on a screen-time-to-payoff basis as Senator Clay Davis, the most corrupt, silver-spoon-fed, conniving and underhanded politician that ever walked his way down a legislative hall.
Perhaps as well as any character in the history of film or television, Davis captured the public’s fears about who is really in charge when the doors of the government close for business and leave the public on the outside.
But Whitlock’s abilities don’t end there. He can even make you hate him when he is following the letter of the law. You want your drug-dealing protagonist to be sympathetic to the audience? No problem. Just have him arrested by Isiah Whitlock, Jr. He’ll do it with a condescending sneer and cadence that will have you wanting the drug dealer set free with a slap on the wrist rather than sent to jail. See, for example, 25th Hour.
Other notable appearances on TV include Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, NYPD Blue and Cagney and Lacey. To this, he added a brief appearance in Goodfellas.
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