Lawrence Gilead JR. I play chess — when I was young, I grew up in my neighborhood Boys & Girls club in Baltimore and was pretty good at it.I remember getting excited about getting the script because I thought about how to do it [David Simon] The crafted scene was very clever.
I remember going out into the pits on the day I shot the scene and seeing a chess board installed. It was hilarious — it was played very realistically. I grew up in a tenement house about 6 blocks from the project where the show was written. This is for some of the people I grew up to check in chess sets. So it felt really natural.
I really didn’t know how the scene would affect me. However, I thought it would be fun. And even now, years later, people walk down the street and approach me, saying, “The king remains king.”
JD Williams All three of us — and this speaks to the existence of the heart that was in the set — we talked about how figuratively it was a wonderful scene. We have disassembled everything. How Wallace didn’t realize that there was no victory, it’s always a war. How the body wants to survive. And how Dangero is trying to explain the rules, how this person works, and how that person works.
Gilead Dangero is a smart cat. He’s like, “This is how I connect with these people.” And that’s what he did.
Williams He is trying to give them some knowledge so they can understand what is really happening. But at the same time, they have to think: He’s like a pawn like us. “
The scene always has a resonating simplicity. No matter where you live, play chess, take drugs, blacks or whites, anyone can immediately understand the scene. The ones most relevant to the best are usually the simplest.
Gilead Those stories have never been told that way. What do you know about drug dealers since you were watching TV at the time? They are standing in the corner, they are dealing with drugs, and they are arrested by police officers. You’re a bad guy, and you’re going to jail, right?
However, David Simon said: They have a life. They do something like playing chess in the middle of the pit. So it’s like that — take the details, those characters, humanize them, and make them real humans — it’s a genius for me.