Lance Reddick, a prolific actor who gained fame playing a police commander on the Baltimore crime drama “The Wire” and later had prominent roles in the “John Wick” movie franchise and the Amazon series “Bosch,” died on Friday. He was 60.
His death was confirmed by his publicist, Mia Hansen. She did not say where he died or cite a cause.
Reddick was having some success as a stage actor when, in 1996, he began landing small roles on “New York Undercover,” “The West Wing” and other television series, as well as some TV movies.
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Even then he was often playing law enforcement figures, and he would be doing so when his breakthrough came in 2002: He was cast as Lt. Cedric Daniels, the principled head of the investigation unit, on “The Wire,” the sprawling HBO series that was praised for its realistic and often downbeat depiction of policing, crime, education and other aspects of life in Baltimore.
The series ran for five seasons and is widely regarded as having brought a new level of sophistication to police dramas and television in general.
“Ever since ‘The Wire,’” Reddick told “The IMDB Show” in a video interview, “I’ve played a lot of intimidating authority figures that talk a lot.”
On the Fox science fiction drama “Fringe,” which made its debut in 2008, he was Phillip Broyles, a Homeland Security agent. In the crime drama “Bosch,” which ran from 2014 to 2021, he was a police official. In the movie “White House Down” (2013), about an assault on the White House, he was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Intensity is not something I try to do,” he told The Queensland Times of Australia in 2010. “It’s just kind of the way that I am.”
He got away from law-enforcement roles in the “John Wick” movies, the action franchise that stars Keanu Reeves in the title role. He played Charon, a hotel manager, in all four films, the first of which was released in 2014. The latest is being released this month.
In all those roles, and in others, Reddick was a distinctive, instantly recognizable presence, even if he was not quite a household name. His voice was distinctive, too, as players of Horizon Zero Dawn, Destiny 2, and other video games on which he could be heard know.
“Range is always what I’m striving for,” Reddick told The Los Angeles Times in 2019. “I never want anybody to say, ‘Oh, this is who he is.’ Although the characters I play, even in all their diversity, tend to be fairly intense. But they’re all very different guys.”
Beginning in 2008 he was in a few episodes of the ABC series “Lost,” playing a character named Matthew Abaddon. The show had a wide following, and though the character wasn’t around long, Reddick said it boosted his visibility even more than “The Wire” had.
“I was living in New York at the time, and it seemed like everybody was stopping me to talk about ‘Lost,’” he told The Baltimore Sun in 2019. “I went from small, niche notoriety to being completely recognizable.”
Lance Solomon Reddick was born on June 7, 1962, in Baltimore. His mother taught instrumental music, and his father was an educator and later a public defender.
Reddick attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he studied classical composition. He was a skilled pianist and in 2010 released an album of his own works, “Contemplations & Remembrances.”
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