When you’re one of the original cast members of “The Wire,” it seems there’s no place to go but down when it comes to television roles.
“It’s a mixed bag,” says actor Wendell Pierce, who played Det. Bunk Moreland, partner to Jimmy McNulty, on the landmark HBO series. “There have been some roles where the work is not on the same level. And it’s magnified when you’ve been on a show written by David Simon and you got a [subsequent] job because you were on ‘The Wire.’
“But that’s Hollywood,” he says. “They’re always asking us to make chicken salad out of chicken s–t.”
Fortunately, Pierce thinks his latest role, morally conflicted FBI parole officer Ronald Keith on Showtime’s “Ray Donovan,” is in the same league as “The Wire.” His charge is Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight), an ex-con whose son Ray (Liev Schreiber) has relieved Keith’s sizable gambling debt in exchange for services rendered.
“Keith has to control Mickey. Ray chooses me to make sure he doesn’t get out of line,” says Pierce, 47. In a series where everyone is more or less beholden to Ray, Keith is just one more pawn. “I’m one of many in Ray Donovan’s world. He can exploit people’s weaknesses for his benefit. That manipulation continues.
“It reminds me how people will compromise values so easily to satisfy their sins.”
Pierce says the best part of the 10-episode gig was working with Voight, whose superb characterization received an Emmy nomination this month. “That’s like going to a master class every day. Jon Voight is a consummate American actor,” he says. “The stuff we discuss between takes, he’s schooling you. Let’s look at this part of the relationship. Let’s try that. It’s been one of the highlights of the job.”
But the “Ray Donovan” job is just one of many on Pierce’s packed schedule. He will also be seen next year in CBS’s remake of “The Odd Couple” as Teddy, a friend of Oscar’s (Matthew Perry) who is based on the Murray the Cop character in the Neil Simon original. Pierce also co-stars in “Selma,” a Christmas release about a pivotal moment in the civil rights moment — the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama by Martin Luther King and other supporters of the Voters Rights Act, such as Pierce’s character, Reverend Hosea Williams.
The ensemble “Selma” cast includes David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey and Pierce’s fellow Juilliard alumni Lorraine Toussaint (“Orange Is the New Black”).
Pierce describes himself as “tricoastal.” He has a home in New Orleans, where he grew up and filmed the HBO series “Treme.” His role, as philandering trombone player Antoine Batiste, struggling to get by in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, is another of his career highlights, but for different reasons than “The Wire” or “Ray Donovan.”
“ ‘Treme’ was beyond a TV show for me,” he says. “It was the last four years I got to spend with my mother before she passed away. To work in my hometown. It’s a wonderful documentary of our culture. I’m so proud of it and it was therapeutic for the people of New Orleans.”
He also lives in LA, where “Ray Donovan” films, and New York City. He’ll be back this way in February to star in a play set in New Orleans called “Brothers from the Bottom” that will be performed in Brooklyn.
The main focus of his life has been establishing his versatility, whether it’s acting in the Euripides Oedipus cycle at the Parthenon or playing Michael J. Fox’s boss last season on the short-lived “Michael J. Fox Show.”
“I really enjoyed working with Michael. It was a real joy,” he says. Even though the show didn’t make it, Pierce is unfazed. “It’s about the work you do and the people you do it with.”