Quotes

[on how similar he is to his character Omar Little in The Wire (2002)] - I was never a thug. I never even liked to fight.

I love my characters. I play them with 100% honesty; there's no holding back. I understand where they are coming from.

[on how he got his facial scar] It happened on my 25th birthday. I was acting immaturely because I was on that "liquid courage" [alcohol], and some words were exchanged between me and a group of gentlemen. I was drunk so I fought and ended up getting jumped. They cut me with a razor from the top of my head to my neck. I nearly lost my life that night. That was my first wake-up call.

The first season was great. I was at an all-time high, getting more money than I ever seen. But I was careless. I blew all my money. See, I am from Brooklyn and when we get money we love to spread it around. I even bought me a crib on Baltimore Hill. I was out in the streets getting into a lot of trouble. I ended up getting evicted from my crib and having to stay with my baby mother until the next season. You only got paid for the episodes you were in and there wasn't any Omar in season two, so I was basically broke until season three. But I loved playing Omar.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and I respect them but I do my work and I go home. If they only see Omar as a one-dimensional character then they don't understand The Wire (2002) as a whole. What I will say about Omar is he helped the Black community by breaking this stereotype we have about homosexuals. I'm actually proud about that.

[on The Night Of (2016)] In my perspective, the show has very little to do with the subject of race, and everything to do with class. I've come to realize that the race thing is a smoke screen. The real war is a war on class. It's about how much green you have in your pocket. In this country, you can unfortunately literally get away with murder if you have enough political background behind you. You are innocent until you are proven poor.