‘The Wire’ star Clarke Peters pitches “time jump” reunion movie set in the UK

"I would do it at the drop of a hat."

Actor Clarke Peters, known for playing veteran detective Lester Freamon in HBO drama The Wire, has revealed his idea for a reunion film starring original cast members.

Set in Baltimore, the complex crime drama garnered critical acclaim during its five season run from 2002 to 2008. Created by David Simon, The Wire followed a single police investigation, from the perspectives of both law-enforcement officials and the criminals they were pursuing in a city-wide drug war.

Clarke Peters. Credit: Getty

Advertisement

Now, Peters – currently starring in the BBC and HBO‘s TV adaptation of fantasy book series His Dark Materials – has said he’d return to the series “at the drop of the hat”.

“I think it needs to be revisited myself. Some of us in the cast have been campaigning for that for the past 10 years,” he told NME. “I would do that only if David [Simon] and Ed Burns [producer] were involved in the writing. But I would do it at the drop of a hat.”

Peters went on to reveal he’d discussed the possibility of a reunion film with members of the cast as recently as seven months ago.

Speaking to Sonja Sohn, who portrayed fellow detective Shakima ‘Kima’ Greggs in all 60 episodes of the show, Peters said they chatted about how the series could make a comeback.

“I asked her: ‘have you heard anything? Are we gonna come back to together again?'” said Peters. “We’d throw around ideas about what different scenarios that we might like to pick up on and how we would approach… where we would be in our lives when we were called back together. Who would be called back together. All that.”

Clarke Peters and Sonja Sohn in ‘The Wire’. Credit: HBO

Advertisement

Later, the 67-year-old New York City native put forth his own pitch for what the film’s plot could be about, even revealing that he thinks it could be set in the UK.

“It would have to be a time jump, and it would have to be a subject matter that has something linked to an old case,” he said. “Okay, here’s one for you. Do you remember when those girls were found in the trailer?”

Referring to a recent incident in which 39 migrants were found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex, Peters said: “Recently, in Essex, there were a group of people who were found inside of a trailer. They were immigrants, some of them were women, some of them were men, they were coming from south-east Asia.

“Anyway, it would take something like that [to get the cast back together]. If they were trying to find the network of people who were smuggling these people in and out of the country. That’s the type of case I think would bring together the cold case crew. Because it’s something that we really did work on in fiction and it’s something that has happened subsequently. Something like that would, I think, be worthy of revisiting.”

Asked to confirm if he thought Lester and Kima could make it to the UK in his theoretical sequel, Peters said: “Wouldn’t that be nice! I don’t know who you speak to about that but start talking and let’s make it happen!”

You May Also Like

Advertisement

TRENDING

Advertisement

More Stories