Michael K. Williams Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Profession Actor
Birth name Michael Kenneth Williams
Nationality American
Birth November 22, 1966 (Brooklyn, New York – United States)
Death September 6, 2021

BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1966, his youth in Brooklyn was tormented by delinquency and gang rivalries. His trademark on screen will even become the scar that a neighborhood gang gave him with a razor on the evening of his 25th birthday.

After starting training at the “National Black” theater in New York, he left school to work for a time in a pharmaceutical company which he in turn left to launch a career as a dancer. It was the album “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” by the eponymous singer, released in 1989, which pushed him to take this path. Alternating between job searches in music and dance studios, intermittently homeless, after a year he finally found a place as a dancer in Kym Sims’ musical show.

This early experience allowed him to appear as a dancer in music videos and on tours for stars like Madonna and George Michael . At this time, he also did a little modeling and signed his first choreography for the Crystal Waters single, “100% Pure Love”, in 1994. It was in 1996 that he played a character for the first time on the big screen, in “MugShot”, by Matt Mahurin where he plays one of the two headliners. He was spotted that same year by actor-rapper Tupac Shakur who offered him the role of his little brother in Bullet , by Julien Temple and with Mickey Rourke .

This role opened the doors to acting for him, he obtained a few small roles in TV films and series such as The Sopranos or Deadline . He ended up making a reputation for himself and playing more notable characters, which made him appreciated by the general public, in The Kill Point and especially in Sur Ecoute , one of President Barack Obama’s favorite series, notably thanks to the interpretation of Michael K. Williams. His character, Omar Little, a sort of modern-day Robin Hood (he steals from drug dealers), is considered cult.

Continuing since 2008 to accept (very) secondary roles in feature films, he is at the same time becoming more and more known to the public thanks to his incarnations in various American series such as The Philanthropist and especially Boardwalk Empire where he plays an important character, that of a formidable alcohol trafficker . At the same time, 2014 seems to bring him further into the cinematic field since he appears in 12 Years a Slave , by Steve McQueen , RoboCop , the remake by José Padilha , American Nightmare 2: Anarchy and Kill the Messenger worn by Jeremy Renner .

Claire Lefranc