One on One with Gbenga Akinnagbe

Change is the only constant on the streets. Just as the good folks of inner-city Baltimore got used to Avon Barksdale calling the shots, he was sent to jail and a soulless monster named Marlo Stanfield was suddenly the most powerful drug dealer on HBO’s hit series, The Wire.

A cold-blooded killer like Stanfield has no shortage of enemies. That’s why a right-hand man like Chris Partlow is vital to protect Marlo against rivals. Partlow is a loyal assassin who does whatever it takes to guard Stanfield without ever asking why. We recently had a chance to sit down with Gbenga Akinnagbe, the talented actor who plays Partlow, to talk about life on The Wire, working with Philip Seymour Hoffman and his amateur wrestling background.

You are originally from the Washington, DC area. Where do you call home now?

New York, I’ve been here for it feels like a long time. I’m not sure exactly how many years I’ve been here. All the years blend together. I’ve been here for I think four or five years and I spend most of my time here. But I still love the DC area. Whenever I go back, I’m very appreciative of the area. But I think New York is my spot.

Did you grow up in DC?

I grew up in Montgomery County. I was born in DC. And my whole family’s from Nigeria.

How did you get into acting? How old were you when you started and how did you decide this is what you wanted to do for a living?

I started when I was 21. I used to work for the federal government and I didn’t know anything about acting, I wasn’t even all that interested in it. Then, I don’t know, I just got curious about it and I researched it, I bought some books. I went online to see what actors do. And then I started going on auditions. Even when I started going on the auditions, I wasn’t really trying to pursue it. I got cast at the Shakespeare Theatre in DC and I had to decide whether I was going to leave my good government job or stay. And I decided to leave and I’ve been acting since.

Once you made the decision, was it pretty easy to get cast or did you have a tough time getting roles?

The truth of the matter is I was really ignorant. I didn’t know it was supposed to be hard, so I just continued to get work. I didn’t know that you needed an agent or a manager, so I got work by myself. I would go to auditions. I would get people to help me, my friends, and while I was working in these plays, these professional actors would help me with other auditions. Money was tight, but I always ate. I’m not going to say it was easy, but I worked consistently.

Your first credited film role was in They’re Made Out of Meat, a short film starring Tom Noonan. The name was too great not to bring it up. What can you tell us about the film?

It was a student film that got some money and some backing and became a small indie – a 10-minute film. Yeah, that’s the first thing I did. I found that, I think, in Backstage. It’s when I was going out there and I still didn’t have representation, so I would find work wherever I could find it. I went in, I think it was the New York Film Academy, and auditioned for this Irish director, Stephen was his name, and he did the film. And in the end product, they cut out most of my stuff.

What was the film about?

It’s based off of a short science fiction story. They wrote this 10-minute film about it. These two detectives – they appear to be detectives, but you’re never quite sure – they meet in a diner and start talking about what they’re discovering. You realize they’re talking about people, human beings, and how they are appalled and amazed to find out that human beings are made out of meat – that they talk with the meat, flapping meat, and that they perspire and so on. You see everyone in the diner and so on. And that’s pretty much it. (Laughs.) It’s a 10-minute film.

Of course, you play Chris Partlow on the best show on television today, The Wire. How did you end up getting cast on the show and how was the character described to you initially?

I moved from Maryland at the time. I was in Jersey. And I would get calls from casting directors in the DC/Maryland area sometimes and they brought me down to audition for the Marlo Stanfield role. I auditioned for different roles a couple times. I was an extra on the show, I was actually even a background extra in the pilot episode. It was a long time ago. Then, after I auditioned for Marlo, they offered me Slim Charles, which I ended up taking. But then when it got closer to the film date, filming that episode conflicted with something else I was doing and I was trying to decide what I should do. And I ended up turning that role down and later on, I was kicking myself, wondering if I should have turned that down. Then the summer came and they called me up and said, “The writers and producers really like you and they have a larger role. They want to know if you’ll take it.” I said yes, and it was Chris.

That definitely worked out that you passed on Slim Charles then.

Oh absolutely. Everything happens for a reason and I was very fortunate.

What did they tell you about Chris originally? It’s an interesting character, he doesn’t give much of himself away, but the show continues to give small glimpses into another side of him besides his role as Marlo’s muscle. His frustration over being separated from his family while being on the lamb, his understanding of Michael’s problem with the abusive stepfather in season four and the strain on his relationship with Marlo this season all seem to hint that there is more to Chris than meets the eye. Was the character ever laid out for you or do you just get these little pieces from the script?

It’s a combination of both. The writing is really good, so as an actor you try to extract as much as you can from the writing. And you get hired because of your interpretation and what they think you can do with it, so they have that trust in your collaboration with it. So I’d get the script and I remember them telling me very little about the script. I remember asking them, “Give me more, give me more” because I wanted to just soak it all up and work with it and so on.

And he told me, “You were hired because of what you can do with it and now you take it and do what you can do with it.” So from the writing of the scripts and what they put into it, what came out was my interpretation.

So how do you see the character? What is your interpretation?

I think Chris is – we all have our dark side, but Chris is a dark side exaggerated and manifested. Basically, he’s a sociopath, but I don’t want to just categorize him as that, although it’s hard not to categorize someone with the label sociopath. He’s very indifferent. He could just as easily take your hand as kill you. Whereas Snoop is a psychopath, she’s got a thrill for this, she really enjoys it and so on, Chris cares for very few things in life and very few people. Among them are Marlo and Snoop, his family and so on. He’s got extreme tunnel vision. If there’s something on his plate, that’s what happens. That’s what’s being taken care of. Which makes him very good at what he does, but it doesn’t leave room for anything else in life, which he’s fine with.

Do you get along well offscreen with Felicia Pearson and Jamie Hector?

I hate them. (Laughs.) No, no, we get along great. I hang out with them. I’m doing a play in New York, Jamie, who plays Marlo, is coming out to check out the play. We’re very supportive of one another and we have a lot of fun together. It’s a good cast, on and off screen. We hang out when we can. It’s a very large cast, so we don’t get that much of an opportunity. But those of us who live in New York, we make efforts to support each other’s work and hang out, which is great.

What was it like on set with so many characters being killed of this season? Were actors paranoid about having their characters killed off?

Ha! Every season of The Wire there’s a paranoia because after Stringer Bell died, pretty much anyone can go. Stringer was a very popular character, Idris is a great actor, and if he could get killed off, then anybody could, which is great because it keeps a liveliness to the show. It keeps you very aware and in the present time both on and off set.

And also, there’s a reality to that. If you’re on the streets, it’s not like just because you’re popular, that doesn’t mean you are going to last. Only in television-land does that happen.

And if you’re doing dirt on many different sides, you’re shortening your lifespan on the street anyway. So yeah, we all felt that a stray bullet can come down any one of those alleys and take any one of us out.

Are you happy to have made it this far? Obviously, you are in jail, but it could be worse, right?

Yeah, it could be worse. But The Wire‘s the type of show that if you have a great death, a glorious death, that can be even better than living sometimes.