TERRY GROSS, HOST:
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, HBOs "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 cocreated by David Simon, who also cocreated the HBO series "Treme," set in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Peters costarred 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 Boroughs." 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 and settled in London, where he continues to live and is speaking to us from. He's been in London stage productions of the musicals "Guys And Dolls," "Porgy And Bess" and "Chicago," as well as dramas. He cowrote and costarred in the original production of the musical "Five Guys Named Moe," which was first staged in London. It moved to Broadway, where it was also a big hit. Clarke Peters, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's such a pleasure to have you.
CLARKE PETERS: Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. I did all that (laughter)?
GROSS: You did a lot more than that.
PETERS: (Laughter).
GROSS: But I figured, let me keep my intro short so we have more time to actually talk. I could've gone on. I left out a lot of series and movies. So let's get to "The Boroughs." So the cast is largely in their 60s and 70s because it's set in a retirement community. You yourself, you know, as Clarke Peters, you're in your mid-70s. What kind of roles do you think you would've been offered at this age when you started professional, acting professionally, in the 1970s?
PETERS: Well, I picked this profession so that I would have longevity, so that I could still be acting at 100 if it comes to it. But starting out, (laughter) I always played older people. So in "Driving Miss Daisy," for example, with Dame Wendy Hiller, I think I was in my late 30s playing Hoke, who is well up into his 80s. And I looked at a diary that I'd written. And on one page, it was, I'm tired of playing old guys because there's no future in it.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: But I'm still here playing old guys (laughter).
GROSS: What appealed to you about the role in "The Boroughs"?
PETERS: To tell you the truth, honestly, I didn't want to do "The Boroughs" because someone had likened it to "Stranger Things," which I hadn't seen before this offer came through. And what I didn't want to be doing was acting as I'm chasing monsters until I'm 80 years old. But then I read the script, and I thought, oh, I can resonate with this journey, with the quest that Art is on. And then I looked at the cast, and I thought, oh, there's just no way I can say no to this.
GROSS: There are roles for older people where, especially sometimes when the cast is all about older people, where I sense something condescending. They're either like, oh, it's so cute, they're on an adventure, you know? Oh, it's so cute, they're still walking.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Oh, it's so cute.
PETERS: They're still breathing (laughter).
GROSS: They're still breathing. Oh, it's so cute, they've fallen in love.
PETERS: Yeah (laughter).
GROSS: Do you get offered roles like that? And what do you do?
PETERS: Yes. Yeah, it's - I try to let people know that just because we live in a society where we take the elderly and we hide them away, doesn't mean that they're not valued or that they have something to offer. And I like to at least have that conversation, you know, that the elderly remember the past. You know, and if you want to move forward, you better talk to some older people, you know? And, yes, we do fall in love. And, yes, we do have adventures. And there are still things to discover, even at this age.
I'm not going to slow down just because I'm a septuagenarian. That just does not make sense. That's the furthest from my mind and, hopefully, from my body. You know, so finding roles that are like "The Boroughs," you know, where there's a group of people who are the same age having an adventure, I like that. Otherwise, you know, I've been somebody's dad, somebody's grandfather. You know, I just like to be somebody's brother, somebody's lover, you know, and just carry on as life is, as it really is.
GROSS: I hope you're not tired talking about "The Wire," but it is one of the best TV series ever made, maybe the best. And you're one of the stars. So can we talk about that just a little?
PETERS: Sure. We can talk about it a lot.
GROSS: Thank you. So you played police detective Lester Freamon. And you're the detective who finds clues through, like, online research and files, through contacts, wiretaps. And you can put two and two together and synthesize the clues that you found into some kind of path. But you start off in the series working the pawnshop beat. And I want to play a scene from early on in the first season. You've just found an important clue that no one else on the investigation has been able to find, identifying who Avon Barksdale is.
PETERS: Yes.
GROSS: And so he's one of the two major drug dealers in the series. So here's a scene where detective Jimmy McNulty comes to see you in your office. He's impressed with the work you've done. But when he walks in, he finds you putting together miniature models of furniture.
PETERS: (Laughter).
GROSS: And McNulty is played by Dominic West, and he speaks first.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WIRE")
DOMINIC WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) So you're police after all. You know what you're doing but you ain't been doing it. How long have you been in the pawnshop unit?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) Thirteen years and four months.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) Thirteen years?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) And four months.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) I got to ask you. What exactly does a police officer assigned to the pawnshop unit do?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) You can take reports from registered pawn shops and all items valued over $50, then you make an index card for that item. Then you file that index card. If someone wants to find out if something stolen has been pawned, we look to see if we have an index card. If we do, we do. If we don't, we don't.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) You did that for 13 years?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) And four months.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) Why'd you ask out of homicide?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) Wasn't no ask about it.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) You got the boot?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) Uh-huh.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) What'd you do to piss them off?
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) Police work.
WEST: (As Detective James McNulty) I think I need to buy you a drink.
PETERS: (As Detective Lester Freamon) Just one?
(Laughter).
GROSS: I heard you say as we were listening to that, four months - just one? You remember the lines from that?
PETERS: I remember the scene (laughter). Yes.
GROSS: This was one of your first scenes, right?
PETERS: Yeah, yeah.
GROSS: Is that also why you remember it?
PETERS: No, I didn't remember it until we started to hear it (laughter).
GROSS: Oh, and then it came back to you.
PETERS: And then it came back to me, yes. Yeah.
GROSS: Oh.
PETERS: I'm not one of those actors that holds onto the stuff. I'm amazed, you know, when Ian McKellen, for example, will all of a sudden out of nowhere start reciting reams of Shakespeare that is appropriate to a particular moment that we're living today. I don't have that kind of mind. But when I hear something like that, it's like playing music. You know what key you're playing, and you figure, I remember this melody. Yeah, so you pick it up from there.
GROSS: Is Lester the role you auditioned for?
PETERS: Did I audition for Lester? No. I don't think I did, but I was quite happy to land in Lester's lap, so to speak. You know, he's the guy I want to be when I grow up, you know?
GROSS: (Laughter).
PETERS: He's - because he does do police work. You know, he doesn't have access to the internet. You know, it was old-fashioned research, when you went through volumes of - tomes of information, whether it was banking or whether it was, in this particular instance, real estate records, and then having to cross-reference that. You know, my mind likes that kind of agility, you know, and I liked that being applied in Lester's life.
GROSS: Did you only know the scenes you were in, or did you also get to see what was happening behind the scenes in city politics and, you know, among the drug dealers and the corner boys and - did you get to see their scenes, or did you just know what you would know as your character?
PETERS: No. Back then, you know, we would get the whole episode, and you would read the whole episode. Nowadays, you know, you get a scene. You have no idea the context of the scene, and you're asked to audition. I can't do that. I refuse to do that. I think that that really makes our job as actors very difficult. When we have the whole story, then we can see how we fit into that story and how we can either enhance that story, sell it or whatever. You know, at the end of the day, the star of any story is the story you're telling. It has - it's not the person, you know, who's at - whose name is above the title. You know, it's - and when that becomes more important than the story that we're telling, you know, then we just - we as actors just become commodities. You know, I push back against that. I really do, you know.
And as far as, like, reading every episode, I couldn't wait until the next episodes came. And I was always looking for that moment that said Kima may be saying something to McNulty like, did you hear what happened to Freamon? He caught one while he was...
GROSS: (Laughter).
PETERS: ...Pumping gas, you know? I never expected to be there that long, you know. But thank the Lord I was, you know.
GROSS: (Laughter) What did you think of the police when you were growing up? And did playing a police detective give you an empathy for police that you maybe didn't feel before?
PETERS: I grew up with great respect for the police because in Englewood...
GROSS: Englewood, New Jersey.
PETERS: ...Englewood, New Jersey, we knew the police. We went to school with their children. They knew our parents, you know? And so it was almost something that you may wanted to have - to aspire to. Going through the '60s and '70s, I lost total respect for the police because of their abuse of power. I don't have a lot of respect for them now for that same reason. Yet, for those who are walking that beat and who are trying to do the right thing, I have the greatest respect for. And I know that we can be in a society that is policed in a - in the proper way, where the community as well is part of the health of that community with the police.
GROSS: I know that it took you years to actually watch "The Wire." So my question is, what's wrong with you?
PETERS: (Laughter) Work. I never had time to slow down long enough to watch it. And there's nothing wrong now, now that I've seen it.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: Well done.
GROSS: Were you surprised at how good it was?
PETERS: Yeah, I was. I was. I actually binge-watched all five seasons. I had double knee replacements, and I was recuperating. And I thought, you know, I've only seen the first two episodes of each season because that's what they would show before I - we finished shooting, and then I'd come back to England. It wasn't being shown in England, and I would start work until the next season of shooting. So I never got a chance to watch the whole - a whole season, you know? But then when I was sitting there with this ice pack on both of my knees, I just binge-watched and I thought, this is really good. I think I may even have watched it twice, you know, just to really get the nuances of different people's performances, but also the information that's being imparted concerning our society. You know, that I found very, very insightful.
GROSS: Yeah. Agreed. So we need to take a short break here. Let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Clarke Peters. He's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series "The Boroughs." He was one of the stars of the HBO series "The Wire." And in Spike Lee's film "Da 5 Bloods," he played one of the four Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN PAESANO'S "THE BOROUGHS MAIN TITLE")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Clarke Peters. He's currently starring in the Netflix series "The Boroughs."
You are one of the stars of Spike Lee's 2020 film, "Da 5 Bloods." And so this is about four Black Vietnam vets who return to Vietnam decades after the war. They want to bring back the remains of the unit leader, Norm, who was killed in the battle he helped the men survive and was also, like, a really good friend to these four vets. So they're returning after having not seen each other for years, and they're going to bring back the remains of Norm. And they're going to search for the gold bars that they discovered and buried, hoping to bring them back and cash in.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: So this is your character talking about Norman, the squad leader, whose remains they're going back to find.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DA 5 BLOODS")
PETERS: (As Otis) Wasn't many brothers who made squad leader. The Man was using bloods for cannon fodder. They put our poor Black [expletive] on the front line, killing us off like flies. Stormin' earned his name, was in all kinds of firefights, trained us in the way of the jungle and made us believe that we would get home alive.
GROSS: That was a scene from Spike Lee's film "Da 5 Bloods," featuring my guest, Clarke Peters.
You were an antiwar activist, and you served in part as kind of like a medic, helping people who were tear-gassed or injured by the police. Can you describe your objections to the war, what you thought of the war, and what you were willing to do to avoid the draft and avoid being sent to the war?
PETERS: First of all, I was with a group of students from Boston University. We'd taken a bus down to, I think, the last moratorium. I'm not too sure. And as a medic, I was asked to not just look after the protesters, the demonstrators, but also if the police were hurt, to look after them as well, you know, which seemed to make a lot of sense to my spirit. When I was arrested, my thoughts of America went down a notch, I think.
GROSS: What were you arrested for?
PETERS: I was arrested for obstructing police lines after John Mitchell came on the top of the Department of Justice and asked everyone to leave in 20 minutes and gave us explicit directions on where to go. I followed those directions - we all did - just to find that we were being shunted into buses and taken to a holding cell in College Park, Maryland. It was absurd.
And then to go to court the following day - we weren't even processed the first 12 hours. But then to go to court the following day and to be put in front of a judge. He said, you've got to be here in my court here sometime in June or whatever. I think this happened in April. You have to be here in June. And I was planning on going to visit my older brother in Paris in June. He said, you're not going anywhere, then banged the gavel and called for the next case, you know. So I felt insignificant. I felt like an ant feeling a heel of - the shadow of a foot coming down on top of me. And if it wasn't for, you know, groups like the ACLU and the Urban League, you know, I don't know what I would have done. I walked out of that courtroom in a daze, heartbroken, eyes full of tears, thinking, what just happened? I couldn't believe it.
And someone's calling my name, and they're saying, would you like to have your retrial now? And this person guided me to another courtroom, into which - (laughter) when we got to this courtroom, it was full of smoke because people smoked cigarettes back in those days. There was cheering coming from the gallery. And I walked into this courtroom - three tiers. At the top, there's a long-haired hippie judge, and he's got a line of people in front of him, and he's processing them. He's saying, Jane Doe, you're arrested for obstructing police lines. How do you plead? Not guilty. He slammed the gavel. Boom. Next, you know.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PETERS: Next. And this is all happening in less than an hour.
GROSS: So were you gaveled not guilty?
PETERS: Of course I was gaveled not guilty, you know? And they gave me back my gas mask and my things, and I hightailed it out of there. You know, to be exposed to our system like that, with no information as to how our legal system is supposed to work, you know, to be taken up and then dropped down and then saved, it's a hell of an emotional roller coaster for the day. I could have easily been, you know, lynched. You know, who would have known? Who would have known?
GROSS: Well, at another time, in another place, that's - that was a real possibility.
PETERS: Maybe another time, but not necessarily another place. And that's my point, is that, you know, having had that experience, the scales dropped from my eyes.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you 'cause we need to take another break. My guest is Clarke Peters, and he's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series "The Boroughs." He was one of the stars of the HBO series "The Wire." He was in Spike Lee's film as one of the stars in "Da 5 Bloods," and he's been in plenty of other things, including a lot of shows on the London stage. So we'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF TERENCE BLANCHARD'S "WHAT THIS MISSION'S ABOUT")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Clarke Peters. He's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series "The Boroughs." He was one of the stars of the HBO series "The Wire" in the role of police detective Lester Freamon. In Spike Lee's 2020 film "Da 5 Bloods," he played one of the four Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war to bring back the remains of their squad leader and take care of some unfinished business.
So you settled first in Paris, and then you moved to England, largely because of England's great reputation for great theater. And you got roles there. You even got a role in "Hair," which you had auditioned for several times in New York and never got (laughter).
PETERS: Yeah (laughter).
GROSS: So what's your theory about why you were getting more roles in England on the stage than you got in New York?
PETERS: First of all, my career began in England. My first professional job was in England with the Watford Rep - Repertory Company - doing "Guys And Dolls."
GROSS: That's such a great show. The songs are so good. And you played Sky Masterson, right?
PETERS: I did, yes. Three times there and then twice with the National Theatre.
GROSS: How great is that? So you got to sing "Luck Be A Lady" and...
PETERS: (Singing) I've never been in...
GROSS: "I've Never Been..."
PETERS: (Singing)...Love before.
GROSS: What a great duet. Yeah.
PETERS: And also the - I mean, the best song in that is (singing) my time of day...
GROSS: Oh.
PETERS: (Singing) ...Is the dark time.
GROSS: You are so right. And it's not in the movie.
PETERS: Yes, that's right, because he couldn't sing it (laughter).
GROSS: Well, it's got unusual intervals. Was it hard for you to sing? Do you want to do a few bars of it? It's such a great song.
PETERS: (Singing) My time of day is the dark time. A couple of deals before dawn, when the street belongs to the cop and the janitor with a mop, and the grocery clerks are all gone. And the smell of the rain-washed pavement comes up clean and fresh and cold, and the street lamp light fills the gutters with gold. That's my time of day, my time of day. And you're the only doll I ever wanted to share it with me.
I was singing in the wrong key, but...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: It was still lovely, though.
PETERS: (Laughter).
GROSS: God, what a great song, and what a pleasure to hear you sing it. You have a pretty big range, right? That was, like, really deep at the end.
PETERS: Yeah. I...
GROSS: I mean, down low in the keyboard.
PETERS: (Laughter) I'm a bass-baritone with tenor tendencies. That's what I like to say.
GROSS: That sounds dangerous (laughter) .
PETERS: I - you know, as it came out of my mouth...
GROSS: (Laughter).
PETERS: ...I thought, yes, that's probably the wrong way to put it.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: So did that make you flexible on what kind of singing parts you got - that you had, like, the...
PETERS: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Bass and the tenor tendencies?
PETERS: Yes. Yes. By the time we got to Porgy in "Porgy And Bess," that's in my middle range, but...
GROSS: Were you Crown or Porgy?
PETERS: I was Porgy.
GROSS: Oh, wow.
PETERS: Yeah. Yeah. I liked - I loved that.
GROSS: Well, "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" is...
PETERS: Oh.
GROSS: ...Beautiful.
PETERS: (Vocalizing) I'm not going to sing that one, Terry.
GROSS: It's - that's a hard one.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: How is being Black in London different from being Black in New York or other places that you'd been to in the U.S.?
PETERS: Let's go back to why I (laughter) was back - why I came to England. I can address that particular question through theater, OK? What England had to offer, or the way I feel I was successful in England, was first of all because I was an American, secondly because I was a Black American and because the culture of America concerning entertainers in theater and in musicals is something that is already part of our culture - of the American culture.
In England, people of color here, coming from the Caribbean or coming from Africa, do not have that same sensibility in theater, particularly, at that particular point in time, in musicals. So it was - it - to a large degree, it was easier for me than my Caribbean or African counterpart to get the same roles. Do you understand what I'm saying?
GROSS: I understand exactly what...
PETERS: Yeah.
GROSS: ...You're saying.
PETERS: Yeah.
GROSS: Yeah, I don't think musicals are, like, a big tradition in Jamaica.
PETERS: No (laughter). And neither are they in England. But a pantomime is. Yes. That's their...
GROSS: Musicals are big in England.
PETERS: Yes. They are now. Now they are.
GROSS: They weren't then?
PETERS: Well, they weren't - not for any - not for people of color.
GROSS: Oh, I see what you're saying.
PETERS: Yes. Yes.
GROSS: Right.
PETERS: Not for people of color at all. And because the dynamic - the political dynamic had to change, to a large degree, I think that I was help - I was here to help facilitate that change or that acceptance.
There was a musical called "Bubbling Brown Sugar" that came in 1978, I think, to London. It was a huge, huge success. A cast of, I think, about 38 - 38 Black dancers, singers, and three white dancers and singers. And the story is basically we take them on a tour of what Harlem was like during the renaissance and during the heyday of Harlem, you know? And so it was the kind of show that you had to act, sing, dance, you know, do comedy, everything. And it's the first time, I think, that that generation had been introduced to this quality of performance, particularly by a Black company.
GROSS: What songs did you sing in "Bubbling Brown Sugar"?
PETERS: I sang "Sophisticated Ladies (ph)." Yes. I sang...
GROSS: The Ellington song?
PETERS: "Georgia" - yeah, the Ellington. Gosh. Yes.
GROSS: That also has some unusual intervals in it.
PETERS: I get them, darling.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: I get them, believe me.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: A few bars?
PETERS: (Singing) They say into your early life romance came, and in this heart of yours burned a flame. A flame that flickered one day and died away.
GROSS: That's really nice. Who would have thought that Lester Freamon could sing like that?
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: That was cute.
GROSS: You wrote - cowrote a musical and costarred in the original production. It's called "Five Guys Named Moe." It originated in London, but then it moved to Broadway and it was a huge success. And I never saw it, but I always assumed it was based on '60s harmony groups like the jazz-oriented Four Freshmen or the more folk-oriented The Brothers Four or the very middle-of-the-road The Four Preps. But it's actually, like, Louis Jordan songs. And they're kind of like R&B swing songs, like jump songs. What was the origin of the idea?
PETERS: The origin was back in '85, when I was in Sheffield doing "Carmen Jones." I had a nine-hour ride from there on a Saturday night to my home in the southern part of England, and I would listen to Louis Jordan. And I had done quite a few of these reviews with a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man named Ned Sherrin and his co-writer, Caryl Brahms. And so when I'm listening to Louis' songs, each one of them is a vignette within itself. And he always came with a little - with a moral at the end of the song. And some of these songs seemed to be really talking to me (laughter). So I decided to let them talk to me. So I got as many songs of his that I could and strung them together loosely in a storyline, and it starts.
I mean, just when you think about the song "Five Guys Named Moe," it is the perfect entrance or the perfect preface to the story. Let me tell you a story from way back. Truck on down and dig me, Jack. There's Big Moe. There's Little Moe. There's Four-Eyed Moe. There's No Moe, and then there's Eat Moe, you know? And so just the lyrics themselves introduce the characters, and the rest is history, basically. Yeah. I'm not on the cast album of "Five Guys Named Moe" singing "Azure Te," which was Four-Eyed Moe's song, because I had slipped a disc, and I was out of the show when they were recording that.
GROSS: That's a shame.
PETERS: Believe me, it's a shame.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: You don't know.
GROSS: It hurts you more than it hurts me (laughter).
PETERS: Yes, yes. And actually, my back is beginning to ache now in sympathy to it (laughter).
GROSS: You know, so we talked about your singing in musicals in London, but you also had a small background vocal part in the 1977 hit "Boogie Nights" by Heatwave. Which part is you? The bass part?
PETERS: (Singing) Got to keep on dancing, keep on dancing - that part.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERS: You know, you're very sneaky there, Terry.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PETERS: Come on. I got your number. But even before that, there's a better one. Joan Armatrading had a hit with a song called "Love And Affection."
GROSS: "Love And Affection." And you're on that, too.
PETERS: Yes. That - yes. That was the first. That was '76, that one. Yes.
GROSS: And your part is?
PETERS: (Laughter).
(Singing) Oh, give me love, ooh.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: How did you get to be on that?
PETERS: When I came to England, and I was signed as a singer-songwriter with Essex Music in '73. Joan was also there, and we met there. She was part of a vocal duet group. And we would see each other, and we just got to know each other. She was a sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet person, and she adopted me as her younger brother. She said I always reminded her of him, and we just stayed friends. And one day, she called up and said, would you come and do some backing vocals? So she didn't even have to ask, you know. If she said, would you, I'd have been - I'd have jumped. Like, how high?
GROSS: So why don't we hear that track and you singing bass on it?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE AND AFFECTION")
JOAN ARMATRADING: (Singing) With friends, I still feel so insecure. Little darling, I believe you could help me a lot. Just take my hand and lead me where you will. No conversation. No wave goodnight.
PETERS: (Singing) We'll give you...
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Lover, ooh, ooh.
ARMATRADING: (Singing) Just make love with affection. Sing me another love song, but this time with a little dedication. Sing it. Sing it.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Sing it. Sing it.
ARMATRADING: (Singing) You know that's what I like.
PETERS: (Singing) We'll give you...
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Lover, ooh, ooh.
ARMATRADING: (Singing) Once more with feeling. Give me love. Give me love. Give me love.
GROSS: That's my guest, Clarke Peters, singing the bass part on Joan Armatrading's "Love And Affection."
Let me reintroduce you 'cause we need to take another short break here. My guest is Clarke Peters. He's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series "The Boroughs." He was one of the stars of "The Wire" and one of the stars of Spike Lee's 2020 film, "Da 5 Bloods." We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLARK TERRY, ET AL.'S "SWINGIN' THE BLUES")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Clarke Peters. He's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series "The Boroughs." He was one of the stars of HBO's "The Wire" in the role of police detective Lester Freamon. And in Spike Lee's film "Da 5 Bloods," he played one of the four Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war.
So you grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. Would you describe the neighborhood?
PETERS: Yeah. My neighborhood was brilliant. There must have been 15 children on those three blocks. Across the street from me was an Irish family. Next door to us was a German carpenter, master carpenter, Mr. Fink (ph). Next door to me was a family from Colombia. They had two daughters. There was a family from the South, and they had two boys who were baseball players. You know, gosh. So the whole - it was a community. It was - gosh, it was everybody. It was everybody. And I was introduced to that coming from New York, coming from the projects in New York, you know, which was predominantly Black and Latin, to this multicultural block. Within four blocks of us, we had the United Nations, you know?
GROSS: What changed in your family's financial life that precipitated the move?
PETERS: My father getting a job and being promoted to the advertising manager for a company called Home Light (ph). Yeah, they were upwardly mobile, I guess, is the word that was bantered about then.
GROSS: How old were you when you moved?
PETERS: I was 7.
GROSS: What boroughs?
PETERS: Harlem. Yeah.
GROSS: Your father was a commercial artist. Did he take you to museums?
PETERS: Yeah, he did. And particularly in the early '60s when that exhibition - when the Egyptian exhibition came through New York. You know, I think it...
GROSS: Oh, that was a big deal. Yeah.
PETERS: Yeah, yeah, it was. We spent a lot of time there. And my mother's sister, Ruth (ph), she always lived - she always made sure she lived near a center of culture. So if it was not the New York Museum, it was the Brooklyn Museum or the Botanical Gardens. You know, we were always, always exposed to things like that.
GROSS: Part of your family is of Native American descent. And when you played an Indian chief on "Treme," did you relate to that role because...
PETERS: Absolutely. Absolutely. It resonated with me deeper than I could've ever expected, and particularly when meeting them and talking with some of the older people who understood the history. Because it's - the history of dark-skinned Indians who were marginalized by Hollywood are alive and well in New Orleans. And you can see their pageantry. That is not something that came with the Wild Bill shows after the Civil War.
There are accounts of people traveling from New England in the 17th century, going to New Orleans and seeing people of color dressing up with beads and shells and pine cones, and whatever they could find, you know, as part of their ritual, you know? So it's a history worthwhile looking at. And it's a place to definitely go and experience what the Mardi Gras Indians, as they call them, have to offer America and the American culture.
GROSS: Clarke Peters, I have so enjoyed talking with you and hearing you sing. Thank you so much.
PETERS: Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Catch you the next time around, eh?
GROSS: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: All right. Be well.
PETERS: And you.
GROSS: Clarke Peters is one of the stars of the new Netflix series "The Boroughs." After we take a short break, TV critic David Bianculli will review the new series "Cape Fear." This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOLT VAUGHN AND PHIL KEAGGY'S "BITTER SUITE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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