Wendell Pierce on politics, The Wire and Jack Ryan: ‘I have a consultant at the CIA who helps me prepare’

The stage and screen actor talks to Andrew Pettie about playing a US spook in John Krasinski’s action vehicle ‘Jack Ryan’, and reuniting with his co-stars on ‘The Wire’ following the deaths of Lance Reddick and Michael K Williams

‘That’s the great thing about America. It is malleable, and that’s what allows us to find a way forward’ (Prime Video)

By his own admission, Wendell Pierce owes his career to a hard-drinking, womanising policeman. His name is William Moreland – Bunk to his friends – and he is one of the best-loved characters in David Simon’s brilliant, labyrinthine crime drama, The Wire.

Playing Bunk in The Wire – which many consider the best TV series ever made – sent Pierce’s career on an upward trajectory to the heights of Hollywood and Broadway. Fans will never forget the show but, 20 years after it debuted, how does Pierce think it’s aged?

“It was the canary in the mine,” he tells me, in his rich, rumbling New Orleans accent. “And I have mixed emotions about that. First, what a wonderful, proud piece of television that I’m part of. That series made my career. It is also still very much relevant and prescient today – which [unfortunately] means we haven’t moved the needle far.”