THE WIRE CAST SIGHTING
Thanks to Waxy for pointing me towards Nintendo’s promotional video for the new Punch-Out. It features Clay Davis as Doc, Little Mac’s trainer. Could only be better if they were in Cutty’s gym.
The cast of The Wire is so good and so memorable that it’s always odd to see them pop up outside of Baltimore. Some recent sightings:
- McNulty is taking a page from Omar’s playbook and appearing in the step-child sorta sequel of a Marvel Comics bomb. Dominic West will be appearing as the villainous Jigsaw in December’s The Punisher: War Zone. Here’s the YouTube link, I’ve also embedded the commercial above. You can hear McNulty at :15, and see him under grotesque makeup at :19. It’s well worth a look for Wire fans, I promise. On an unrelated note, War Zone looks like more of a sequel to the 1989 Dolph Lundgren direct-to-video Punisher than the surprisingly fun 2004 Thomas Jane one. I actually like the 2004 Punisher so much, I’m barely embarassed to admit I’ve seen both.
- Beadie (who I should probably start calling Amy Ryan since she was nominated for an Oscar) was a major part of the first few episodes of The Office this season.
- Marlo is on Heroes. I hate Heroes (which I was way ahead of the curve on), but my understanding is that he’s basically playing a superpowered Marlo so maybe I should give it another chance. Marlo also popped up recently in the Max Payne trailer.
- Mr. Prezbo is selling whoppers to Diddy in a new Burger King ad. (thanks for the heads up, Pat)
- The cast of The Wire teamed up (sorta) to make a well intentioned but incredibly boring ad for Obama. I guess it worked. While we’re talking about Obama, here’s an article about what he should learn from The Wire (which the president-elect has cited as his favorite show). The article contains spoilers for those who for some reason haven’t finished all five seasons of the show.
Previous JeffRubinJeffRubin posts about seeing a Wire actor in another movie:
-Carcetti in Shanghai Knights
-Omar in the Hulk
-Sobatka and Bunny Colvin in Face/Off and many more.
-Bunk in Hackers
The Wire’s characters are so deep and convincing that it’s always funny to see them outside of Baltimore in random other roles. Tonight I spotted a good one: Tommy Carcetti as Lord Nathan Rathbone in one of the sequel-iest sequels of all time, Shanghai Knights. SPOILER: Jackie Chan kills him on top of Big Ben.
Highlight of the Shanghai Knights Wikipedia: “While Shanghai Knights contains many anachronisms and historical inaccuracies, the writers say they were intentionally put in to make the movie more fun.”
Previous JeffRubinJeffRubin posts about seeing a Wire actor in another movie:
-Omar in the Hulk
-Sobatka and Bunny Colvin in Face/Off and many more.
-Bunk in Hackers
I would rather see the fire extinguishing robot from Iron Man spun-off than sit through another Hulk movie.
Next two paragraphs for The Wire fans only, especially those who have seen the new Hulk:
Marvel’s marketing department already spoiled one of the movie’s big cameos, so let me ruin the other. During the third and final fight scene, look for a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of The Wire’s Omar. The role was miniscule but conspicuous, which made it feel like a wink to the audience. For a brief moment, it was as if Omar was Stan-Lee-level recongizable. Omar’s boasting in this interview leads me to believe he had a bigger part that got cut.
The Hulk only works when he’s pure rage, but in the new movie he seemed remarkably tame and helpful. I don’t even understand why Bruce Banner was on the run, he posed almost no threat to those he loved. Perhaps he heard Omar was coming.
pile:
Wire actor spotting update
- Gus’ boss (The Sun editor) in a Holiday Inn ad.
- Levy in an Arby’s ad (lots of airplay on Discovery)
Oh boy this is my favorite game. Almost every actor on The Wire is an unfamiliar face, and the characters are so real that it’s usually startling to see them outside of Baltimore.
- I’ve recently seen Bunny Colvin in three random movies on TV. He’s in That Thing You Do (very briefly as a jazz musician), Volcano (as a lab technician in the begining, I only watched the first five minutes I swear), and Face/Off (as the guy who tells Sean Archer about the face switching plan, then gets burned alive by Castor Troy. Also burned alive in that scene - Claudette from The Shield. But let’s stay on topic).
- Also appearing in Face/Off - Frank Sobatka as prison inmate who gets his brain scrambled in their chair torture device thingy, then helps Nicholas Cage escape.
- Scott Templeton shows up in the Baby Mama trailer (via Ricky, who actually emailed me about this)
- Daniels is now on Lost (duh).
- Omar was on the season premeire of Human Giant. You can watch it here.
- Burrell is on the poster for the new Tyler Perry movie, Meet the Browns. Stringer Bell actually starred in Perry’s last movie, Daddy’s Little Girls. I almost wanted to see it to see a romantic comedy starring Stringer.
- I posted about this back in my Blogspot days, but Bunk is in Hackers. He played the bumbling FBI agent who doesn’t believe the hackers. But don’t take my word for it! Someone posted Hackers, in it’s entirety, over 11 parts on YouTube. Bunk pops up at 6:30 in part 10. Hack the planet!
- Literally everyone that was ever on The Wire has also been on Law & Order.
I’d love to here more, but remember that using IMDb and/or Wikipedia is cheating.
I caught this in today’s Metro (full story here, I added the highlighting). Something tells me someone hasn’t actually been watching the fifth season of The Wire.
This post is dedicated to all the On-Demanders who have been waiting two weeks for the series finale.
