Playing Daniels on The Wire is Lance Reddick, an accomplished actor and musician who has already moved on to a reoccurring role on another hit show, Lost, and a series of Cadillac commercials. We recently had the chance to talk to Reddick about his mysterious new character on Lost, Cedric Daniels' overabundance of shirtless scenes and the Dickensian aspect of The Wire.

We first had the chance to talk with you back in October of 2005. Since that time it seems you're finally getting the credit you deserve. Season four and five have spotlighted Cedric Daniels quite a bit as he was handpicked to be the new commissioner. What has it been like for you to watch your character progress and to be spotlighted with some additional camera time?
It's funny you say that because it doesn't feel to me like it's been more camera time. And also, to be honest, except for the last episode, I haven't seen any of the fifth season.

Have you just not been able to catch it?
That's been part of it. The truth is, I don't watch much television. For example, I didn't watch the first two seasons until April of 2006. I watched them straight on DVD. And then I did the same thing with seasons three and four in January of this year.

Well, perhaps you haven't actually had more camera time, but it certainly seems like Daniels has been mentioned quite a bit more often in the final two seasons and has become more of a focus of the show after being groomed to be the police commissioner.
It could be. See, the thing that's kind of funny about the show is that it seems that the cast gets bigger every season if that's at all possible, and the stories get even more complex every season. And, if I would speak to other members of the cast, it's pretty universal that they would say after the first season, they would say that they felt like they weren't working much. Except maybe Dominic West this last season.

Having been a part of The Wire from the very beginning, what was it like to wrap filming on the final season?
It's interesting, other than The Wire, I haven't worked very much until season five and then it just seemed like season five was very busy. Once again, I felt like I really didn't have much to do until the last few episodes. The thing that I remember most is that my last day of shooting was the night that we wrapped for the entire series. And my attitude was kind of like I'm ready to do something else; I'm ready for this to be over. And, that moment, I finished my last shot and I was ready to just sneak out and David Simon kind of made a thing about it - it's not like I was unique, everyone who wrapped for the series, they stopped and said goodbye. And I lost it. I cried like a baby.

It's funny because one of the things I said, I heard recently in Atlantic Monthly that a journalist said something very similar, I had never been much of a literary person. Most of my interests in reading had been in spirituality and psychology and some philosophy. So mainly from the urges of my daughter who's just a voracious reader, I decided it was time for me to start reading more literature. So I had been reading Dickens. And I was really struck by how Dickensian The Wire is because I read three novels back to back.

It's interesting because David Simon seems to shy away from that comparison. You said you haven't watched the final season yet, but in the newspaper storyline, the two unscrupulous senior editors often mention capturing the "Dickensian aspect" of a story. It seems like David Simon views that term with contempt.
It could be that people bandied it about. I said it sort of independent of realizing how much it would be evoked. (Laughs.) It could just be that he doesn't like being constantly compared to someone else.

It seems his preferred metaphor for the show is that it's a Greek tragedy.
When he talks about his work, he doesn't say things lightly. So if he made the reference to Greek tragedy, I'm sure that's how he thinks of it.

His way of explaining it was that it was a Greek tragedy and the institutions are the gods controlling the fate of the characters. The citizens of Baltimore are at the mercy of these gods - the government, the police department, the drug game.
Wow, I get that.

Okay, be honest - did you add a clause to your contract stating that you must be shirtless several times a season or was that the writers' idea?
(Laughs.) That's mostly the third season and, it's funny because they asked me to do it this season and I didn't want to do it. I ended up being in a wifebeater. What happened was the last episode of the second season, the director asked me if I minded having my shirt off when I came out to answer the phone. And then, it was one of those things where - first of all, this is embarrassing to say - a lot of the female crew kept wanting to see me with my shirt off after that. I'm assuming because they asked me whenever that would come up with me and Pearlman in the third season, I don't know how much of it's because fans wrote in or what it was. To be honest, I don't know if I had my shirt off anymore than Dominic West did, especially first season.

That was just a throw-away question, but we do appreciate the amount of thought you are putting into it.
(Laughs.)

What made you decide to go wifebeater in this season? What was the change?
It was only one scene. Honestly, it was a scene where we were at home and she's at the table working and I'm looking at the news and I was in my pajama bottoms and it just felt gratuitous to me. It's different when I'm in bed, but I felt like it was an excuse to have a man's shirt off and I just didn't want to do it.

What are some of your favorite moments from the show?
I think the most exciting season for me was the first. Number one, because it was new, but also because I just knew I was part of something really special and I had so much to do. It's the only season that I was just completely exhausted by the end of it. I felt like the only person in that season that had more to do than me was Dominic, and maybe Larry Gilliard.

The scenes that I've done that comes to my mind is the first season when I have the talk with Detective Polk, he's one of the alcoholics. So much of my character was about going back and forth between a party-line hard ass and jumping in with McNulty and being a rebel. That was one of the few scenes where I felt like it was all about my relationship with one of the men and my relationship to him as a leader and as human being; I cared about him as a person. A sense of responsibility. Honestly, I thought it was beautiful. It was a great scene to play and a beautiful opportunity. I felt like in some ways that said more about who the guy was than anything else.

In season four, Carcetti declares that he wants no more "stat games" in his new administration. But in the series finale, we see his subordinates going into Daniels' office and demanding just that, leading to Daniels resigning as police commissioner and ultimately becoming a defense attorney. It may not be the perfect ending, but are you satisfied with where David Simon left your character or would you have liked to see things end differently for Daniels?
Well, as far as the way my character ended up, I am completely satisfied. In his own way, I think that Daniels was just as much of a maverick, just as intractable as McNulty and Freeman, but from the standpoint of leadership. The only thing that I missed was closure on my relationship with Freeman. But that's from a personal standpoint. Objectively though, I can't say that it would have added anything to the story.

What do you think the legacy of The Wire will be?
Wow, at least in the genre of crime drama and maybe just in drama in general, it's got so many legacies because there's never been anything like it. It may be the first hit dramatic series with a predominantly African American cast, that's one. Number two, possibly the finest written and acting ensemble in the history of television. Once again, I'm on it, so I'm biased, but that is an honest assessment.