How Michael K. Williams Made Omar Little His Own on ‘The Wire’

Williams and his colleagues on the show once spoke about how the role evolved for an oral history of the series.

The first time the casting director Alexa Fogel saw the actor Michael K. Wiliams, he was auditioning for a small role in the HBO drama “Oz.” He did not get the part. But his image stuck with her. And years later, when she began casting a new HBO show, “The Wire,” she found herself thinking of him, recalling the actor with the long scar running down his face, the remnants of a razor blade attack. She had made a note of it. “He made an impression,” Fogel once told me. “I knew I wanted to see him again.”