Jamie Hector

thumb Jamie Hector (born October 7, 1975) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield on the HBO drama series The Wire. Quotes My first thought was, “It gets better than this?” [Laughs.] And then I got a chance to peek at it, and I understood why. You know, the crazy part about it is, I totally understood, because I shot a short film. I executive-produced a short film and went through that entire process—color-correcting and sound mixing—and I understood the reasoning behind it. So I thought it was a great move. It was an audition situation. I was fortunate to be a part of an amazing short film called Five Deep Breaths that traveled the entire film festival circuit. The people in position, they laid eyes on it, and it got me into the room. And it kept me in the room. It’s always fun. [Laughs.] It’s always fun to play the bad guy, because you get a chance to do things that most people only think about doing—or at least some people think about it, anyway—and you get to do it on-screen. What’s even more exciting than that is to be able to play a bad guy that redeems himself, or is redeemed in some way or another. But playing the bad guy, you get to say things and look at people and—well, imagine playing a guy like Iago. I mean, he’s good to Othello until he becomes bad, but—he was always bad! Snoop, I felt. Marlo played off of her particularly well because he understands what she was fighting, also. They had same background, so they had that similarity. But she’s a firecracker. [Laughs.] And you just need to understand the people that you’re around. But I felt like we played really well off each other. For the most part, I think everybody else was kind of kept at bay, at a distance, and just close enough to say, “Okay, I understand what you’re saying, that’s cool. I know it could’ve gone on longer, but I’m happy the way it ended up, because—you have to leave people wanting more. If you have a set goal in mind and you wrote it for five seasons, then you stick to your goal. Yeah, people fell in love with it, and it took a while for them to really grab hold of it, but when they did, it took on a life of its own and was considered the best show on television. But if you stick to those five seasons, then people will constantly watch those five seasons, instead of going six, seven, eight seasons and having people say, “It was good the first couple of seasons, but then it fizzled out.” If that happens, then what they’ll remember is that it fizzled out. But if you stick with the plan, then they remember the greatness. Jamie Hector on loving The Wire and building his own backstory for Marlo;By Will Harris on January 8, 2015 External links Category:Actors from New York City Category:Living people Category:1975 births Category:African Americans