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When is it the right time to tell an actor their character is being pulled off? According to The Wire showrunner David Simon, it should be as late as possible. While some directors and producers want to give their actors the chance to build their performance around the upcoming death, Simon believes this is counterproductive.  

“Tom Fontana, a guy who mentored me in television and [The Wire producer] Nina [Nobel] as well, he said something to me one time. He said, ‘If you tell an actor episodes in advance, then all of a sudden everything in the script is leading up to that. Every single line. ‘Pass the potatoes.’ It might be the last time you ever taste potatoes man,” Simon explains during a 2014 PaleyFest panel. “

“Even for trained actors, measuring everything against the fact that human beings don’t know their own death. They don’t know the moment of their own death. If we did, we could barely go through the day. It’s the kind of thing that yeah, I had a lot of moments where I’d come into guys' trailers with a newly published script two days before going, ‘Good news and bad news.’ I had that, but there really was a method to the cruelty.”

The Wire's David Simon talks about his return to life on the streets with Homicide spin-off graphic novel with Philippe Squarzoni.