The Sunday News
NEW YORK (AP) — Lance Reddick, an American character actor who specialised in intense, icy and possibly sinister authority figures on TV and film, including The Wire, Fringe and the John Wick franchise, has died. He was 60.
Reddick died “suddenly” on Friday morning, his publicist Mia Hansen said in a statement, attributing his death to natural causes. No further details were provided.
Wendell Pierce, Reddick’s co-star on The Wire paid tribute on Twitter. “A man of great strength and grace,” he wrote. “As talented a musician as he was an actor. The epitome of class.” “John Wick — Chapter Four” director Chad Stahelski and star Keanu Reeves said they are dedicating the upcoming film to Reddick and were “deeply saddened and heartbroken at the loss.”
Reddick was often put in a suit or a crisp uniform during his career, playing tall, taciturn and elegant men of distinction. He was best known for his role as straight-laced Lt Cedric Daniels on the hit HBO series The Wire, where his character was agonisingly trapped in the messy politics of the Baltimore police department.
Reddick earned a SAG Award nomination in 2021 as part of the ensemble for Regina King’s film One Night in Miami. He played recurring roles on Intelligence and American Horror Story and was on the show Bosch for its seven-year run.
His upcoming projects include 20th Century’s remake of White Men Can’t Jump and Shirley, Netflix’s biopic of former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. He was also slated to appear in the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, as well as The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
The late Lance Reddick
The Baltimore-born-and-raised Reddick was a Yale University drama school graduate who enjoyed some success after school by landing guest or recurring roles CSI: Miami and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. He also appeared in several movies, including I Dreamed of Africa, The Siege and Great Expectations.
It was on season four of Oz, playing a doomed undercover officer sent to prison who becomes an addict, that Reddick had a career breakthrough.
“I was never interested in television. I always saw it as a means to an end. Like so many actors, I was only interested in doing theatre and film. But Oz changed television. It was the beginning of HBO’s reign on quality, edgy, artistic stuff. Stuff that harkens back to great cinema of the 1960s and 1970s,” he told The Associated Press in 2011.
“When the opportunity for Oz came up, I jumped. And when I read the pilot for The Wire, as a guy that never wanted to be on television, I realised I had to be on this show.”
Reddick attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied classical composition, and he played piano. His first album, the jazzy Contemplations and Remembrances, came out in 2011.
Reddick is survived by his wife, Stephanie Reddick, and children, Yvonne Nicole Reddick and Christopher Reddick.
His death was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.com. (Source: Associated Press)
