Not even HBO: Writer Richard Price on The Wire

Richard Price has twice been nominated for an Academy Award, written eight novels and was one of Terry Gross' first interview subjects on Fresh Air.

But of late, the author of Clockers and Freedomland has been riding the wave of success from a project to which he devoted considerably less time. Known for his gritty character-driven writing as a novelist and screenwriter, Price made the trek down I-95 from New York to Baltimore to write five episodes for The Wire over the show's final three seasons.

With the finale of the critically acclaimed HBO drama still generating plenty of online chatter and debate, it was inevetible that many of the audience questions fired at Price during a reading at the Louisville Free Public Library last month would revolve around his contributions to a show Presidential hopeful Barack Obama recently called the best show on television.

Price was gracious in his handling of the questions and provided such great responses to the inquiries it seem worthwhie enough to transpose for those who share the obsession with the police drama set in Baltimore. If you haven't seen the show, do yourself a favor and visit your local library or video store and get ready for one of the most compelling shows to ever make it to the small screen.

Here's what Price, who read from his latest novel Lush Life, had to say about the show during the audience Q&A time:

How easy or hard was it to work with another great author like (Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, etc.)?

That was a great experience. I mean, they say 'you know it's not TV, it's HBO.' Well, it's not even HBO, it's The Wire, you know. There was a lot of mutual respect. Everybody knew it was like a higher calling. It had to be a higher calling because they were paying us peanuts. And It was like an assembly line.

You know like Price you're doing Episodes 3 and 9, Pellicanos you're doing 2 and 7, Lehane you do 6. David Simon's doing 1 and the grand finale Ed Burns. You know, it was an assembly line so you'd sit there for three days with David Simon and George Burns,..not George Burns, Ed Burns, and you'd bang out what's happening in your episode. And you had to write exactly what you all figured out, you couldn't surprise anyone 'cuz you had to follow perfectly episodes one and two with your episode three and set up episode four.

You couldn't decide to you know all of a sudden Omar's straight. You know, no surprises. And so you left Baltimore with a stack of index cards that were color coded, pink is city hall, yellow is Omar, blue is the drug crew, six is Senator Clay Davis. It's all the trajectories and colors and it was like you went home and did your episode off the index cards. It was a little bit like writing in the phone booth. But I didn't mind...Not only that, but you wrote your episode, let's say you wrote episode seven, Well, unfortunately episodes 5 and 6 ran too long so they're going to move some stuff from six into seven so I get some of Lehane's stuff in my episode with my name on it but some of my stuff gets moved to episode 8. So it's kind of like, check your ego at the door. But it was a good experience. I really liked it.

Are there characters on The Wire you wish you could have written more for?

See the whole thing with The Wire, it's like I mean, that thing is so good. I only wrote five episodes. I gotta be honest. I'm hitching a major ride off that the acclaim that it's getting. But the thing is it's like athletes. Do you wanna see the guy fall on his, you wanna see Joe DiMaggio like stumble, you know, do you want to see him drop a pop fly because he stayed in the game? Yeah, you go out and everybody's really hot about it. It's good. It's like Michael Jordan. I mean it's just The Wire, it's not whatever. But I kind of liked going out, I kind of like people wishing there was more of this character or that character. Then you know, it's like sex. It's the ones that got away are the ones that stay in your mind (laughter). This is a library. I'm looking at this thing it says Teen Fiction (more laughter).

Did you find the characters in The Wire, which was in Baltimore, were the same as the characters you write about in New York City?

Not really. The similarities, the dynamics are universal. I mean, you know, Baltimore, they have a little different glossary that you really don't pay attention to anyhow unless there is a really great expression. But, the difference is the kids that were selling drugs in Baltimore.

Baltimore is like the most violent city I've ever been in. I mean the place looks like Dresden. I mean, there's just nothing there. You pass on an Amtrak train and you feel like it's like the end of World War II and they haven't started airlifting you know, airdropping anything yet.

The thing about Baltimore is everybody is obsessed with The Wire in Baltimore for obvious reasons. And officially the city really hates The Wire officially, but every cop is angling to get on the show. Their police chief who winded up going to jail when he came out David Simon hired him as an actor uh as one of the homicide detectives. But there was one night where I was riding in the back of a police car in Baltimore and they were eyeballing these 13, 14-year-old kids they call hoppers, the very young kids that are out on the street selling drugs. And they watched this kid do enough hand to hands to pick him up. And they get him in the back of the car. These kids what happens when you get them and try to talk to them they turn into geese, which is to say anything you say their response is (a honking geese sound). And so they had this kid in cuffs in the back and I'm sitting in the shotgun seat. These kids know all the cops, they have to know, they know every cop, they know when his vacation is coming up, they know when they are studying for the lieutenant's exam.

I mean, anyways this kid was sitting in the back with cuffs. (And the cop is like) "So your name's Mookie huh?" (honking sound). "You know we got you dead to rights, you know that right, we got you on tape, smiling on candid camera." (Honking sound.) And then the kids looking around and he sees me and I'm obviously not a cop. And the kid goes, "Who's that?" He goes "oh you're in trouble now, Mookie, this guy's a writer." (Honking sound). "Yeah, he writes for The Wire." All of a sudden the kid goes, "The Wire? I love The Wire. I haven't seen all the episodes but I'm hoping to catch up on DVD. Did you also perhaps write 'The Corner'?" And they go, "Wow, so you like The Wire, Mookie?" And he goes (honking sound).

posted [04.09.08]

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