Just to change gears a bit so this interview doesn't get too terribly serious, how often would you guess Sgt. Landsman looks at nudie magazines while sitting at his desk?
(Laughs.) I kind of know when I receive a script that I'll open it up and it will say "Enter your homicide unit daytime. Sgt. Landsman is looking at a nudie magazine and eating half a side of beef as he reams out one of the detectives." That's basically what I know will happen in every scene that he's in. It's kind of a running joke. But hopefully in the fifth and final season, we'll see some of his more cerebral pursuits. Perhaps we'll see him at a Mensa meeting or a chess tournament.

Are you a method actor? How many magazines did you purchase for "research" purposes to get a feel for your character?
(Laughs.) Yeah, I think if you ask David Simon, he'd say, "Well, we took all of this stuff from what Delaney does." But, I'd say no, that's all out of David Simon's back pocket. I'm going to leave that all on him. He had personal knowledge and experience of all of that, obviously in depth, and that part of the character is actually written by the creator himself.

What is it like working on such a complex show? Obviously, as a recurring character, you don't have to pay as much attention to what is going on with everyone else, but do you try to keep track of all of the different plotlines and intersecting stories?
The producers try to keep a reign on the story so it doesn't leak out. So, I wouldn't get every script necessarily. The difficult part about that was that I'd have to know information that happened in those scripts for the character in the following episode. Without that information, I wouldn't know what the character was talking about. So I ended up having to get all of the scripts and keeping up with all of the storylines. It was important just for the character's sake. As an actor, I would feel like I would look silly because I wouldn't know what I was talking about in the following episode.

The hard part about that is you don't necessarily get to watch the show and enjoy it the way someone who is watching it for the first time does because you know what is going to happen. Toward the end of this last season, I actually didn't get a chance to read all of the scripts. Basically, my character was doing the same information, so it wasn't really necessary. Actually, the last couple of weeks when I get a chance to see the episodes, I'm seeing things for the very first time. And I can see what a really interesting and brilliant show it is to watch. It would be one of my favorite televisions shows ... and it is one of my favorite television shows.

Because you're originally from Washington, DC, what is it like filming The Wire so close to where you grew up? Does it mean more to you working so close to home?
It should have a universal appeal. There is some draw to the fact that no television shows are shot anywhere other than Los Angeles and New York, at least major network television shows. So there's a different feel to it altogether. It should appeal to the rest of the country more, I would think.

It means a lot to me to get to work here because I have a four year old and a seven year old. I have two young sons, and their time is split between me and my ex-wife, who lives here in DC. So it makes it much easier on me, personally. I can be in DC and I can be at work in a half an hour. It's not a matter of commuting across the country, which I've had to do in the past and most actors have had to do.

How accurately do you feel the show portrays Baltimore?
It's fairly accurate about the things it addresses. Each individual scene is mostly shot on location in the city. The stuff that's shot on the soundstage is meticulously remade from places in the city. Vincent Peranio is in charge of the look of the show and he's a longtime Baltimore artist who has done this for many years. He knows Baltimore inside and out. For instance, the scenes that are shot in the homicide office, where I mostly am, are shot on a soundstage. It's based on where we actually shot the first season which was on the fifth or sixth floor of 100 Northwest Charles Street. The first season, you'll see the exteriors of that scene will be the actual buildings outside of 100 North Charles Street. When we had to go inside to a soundstage for the following season, they recreated every last detail of the exterior and the interior.

What has the response been like from Baltimore police officers?
The response I've gotten has always been positive. Especially while the show is airing, I'll walk down the street and get stopped left and right. People will say how they love the show and they love the character. It reaffirms that you don't have to kowtow to the lowest common denominator. You can make a thinking man's show about the problems of a city that resonate with people who live there who understand what you're doing is creating a work of art and something to think about. You are not trying to denigrate the city, what you are trying to do is create a dialogue.

It's not bubblegum television. It's not for everyone. I assumed that going in and I'm sure the producers did as well. HBO has apparently been good about that as well. They know that it's not breakout television, it's not going to be this neatly wrapped up hour's worth of crime drama where the drug dealers are all bad and stupid and the cops are all smart and virtuous. It's more like real life than that.

We know you can't give anything away, but what is in store for Jay Landsman for the end of season four?
Jay Landsman, the character, not being part of the main thrust of any of the stories, he doesn't have necessarily a through line of his character. There isn't really any attention paid to what happens to his character. He affects the other stories in certain ways. But definitely look out for the last episode. There's some interesting stuff for Jay there. The final episode of the current season was a lot of fun to do in a different way altogether from anything you've seen from Jay Landsman so far.

What do you do to unwind? What kind of hobbies do you have?
I've got the same hobbies as everybody else - watch a little good television; go to the movies; go out with friends to dinner; play a little tennis, believe it or not, and a little bit of basketball. That's about it. I like to read a lot and I'm a big fan of the theater.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?
I don't know. My day job for 10 years was I managed a bank. I know it wouldn't be that. I would kill myself if I was still doing that. Which is not to say it's not an honorable profession, it just wasn't for me. It made a living for me for a while, while I was doing a lot of stage work in the evening, I was able to use banker's hours to my advantage. So that worked out really well.

To tell you the truth, I really don't know. I think it would probably be something creative, maybe even behind the camera somewhere. Backstage, maybe directing. I would still be in the arts somewhere, I would guess.

Tell us something most people don't know about you.
I'm not the person they see on television. I'm not that character. You are the person they see in terms of your physical form, but you are not the person they see in terms of what you do and how you react to situations. I get a lot of comments about what the character has done and the person I'm speaking with thinks that's a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, I always have to let them know that it's not really me that does that.

As a matter of fact, I actually had nothing obviously to do in the storyline with getting rid of Stringer Bell at the end of the third season, but that caused a huge uproar in the fans. I actually had a t-shirt made up that said "I had nothing to do with Stringer Bell." I was getting so much grief about it.

We've got one last thing for you here. I'm going to do a word association. We'll just throw out a name and tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.

Baltimore.
Charm city.

Jimmy McNulty.
Dom is great.

Dozerman's gun.
Where is it? Where the fuck is it?

Sgt. Jay Landsman.
Smarter than you think.

Delaney Williams.
Not quite as smart as you might think.

The future.
Bright.

Interview by Joel Murphy, November 2006. The Wire airs Sunday nights on HBO.