Clarke Peters: From ‘The Wire’ to ‘The Boroughs’
6/4/202645 min
Peters’ credits include police Detective Lester Freamon in ‘The Wire,’ a Vietnam veteran in Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods,’ and now a retiree in the supernatural thriller ‘The Boroughs’ on Netflix. Peters spoke with Terry Gross about his long career on stage and screen, his singing voice, and why he relocated to London in the ‘70s. “I picked this profession so that I would have longevity, so that I could still be acting at 100, if it comes to it,” he says.
Also, David Bianculli reviews the Apple 10-part miniseries ‘Cape Fear.’
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Your time is worth more than a waiting game. Carvana gives you a transparent offer for your car in minutes and picks it up from your door. Sell your car today at carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.
Terry Gross· Host0:15
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. So many of us became aware of what a great actor Clarke Peters is from his role in one of the best TV series ever made, HBO's The Wire. He played police detective Lester Freamon, who helped track down the drug dealers the detectives were looking for through his research and his analysis of wiretaps. The series was co-created by David Simon, who also co-created the HBO series Treme, set in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Peters co-starred in that, too, as a Mardi Gras Indian chief who returns to his damaged home and tries to rebuild his life. In Spike Lee's film Da 5 Bloods, he was one of the four Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war. Now he's one of the stars of the Netflix series The Burrows. Clarke plays one of the residents in a retirement community that promises an almost utopian chapter of your life. But some of the residents start dying, while others start experiencing some very disturbing, inexplicable encounters and visions. Something's going on, and it seems to be something supernatural. Clarke Peters grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, but moved to Europe in the '70s