The TV show that “changed the game”, according to Tim Roth
There’s often a divide between film and TV stars, but several actors have successfully bridged the gap, effortlessly transitioning from one to the other. Among them is Tim Roth, whose iconic collaborations with Quentin Tarantino introduced his talent to wider audiences who were completely mesmerised by unforgettable works such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
While it’s his cinematic projects that often dominate any discussions surrounding Roth’s performances, TV has always been an important part of his career trajectory. He got his start in the realm of made-for-TV movies, collaborating with pioneering talents such as Alan Clarke and Mike Leigh before moving on to his first proper feature in the form of The Hit.
Before his creative partnership with Tarantino elevated him to the next level, he also appeared in fascinating films such as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead but he never forgot his TV origins. During a conversation with Rolling Stone, Roth once opened up about the divisions that separated the two mediums when he first started out and the iconic television show that transformed everything.
“When I first got to Hollywood, you did TV, or you did film, if you were lucky,” Roth added. “You could be George Clooney and go from a show to movies, but it wasn’t a two-way street. Personally, I have to give it up for David Simon. To me, The Wire is what really changed the game: Oh, TV could be that? Ok. At first, I was jealous of everyone who was on that show – that’s what happens when you see good actors doing good work. Then, when we did Lie to Me, the idea was: Let’s steal as many Wire actors as we can!”
Regularly cited among the greatest shows ever made, The Wire, along with others like The Sopranos, changed the narrow definition of TV that many people held. Acting as a comprehensive sociological document of something as dynamic and vast as an entire city, it proved that television has narrative possibilities that are simply not available to most feature filmmakers. Roth experienced that transformation in perception while working on Fox’s Lie to Me.
The actor added: “You could see the barriers starting to come down a bit. It wasn’t so much TV versus film anymore; you could start to do both. I had some actors calling me while I was doing Lie to Me and asking me, ‘How is it, doing this?’ And you know, it was a network procedural with really good writers, so overall, it was good. You knew where you were going.”
Tackling a different institution in each season of The Wire, David Simon carefully constructed a mindboggling critique of the corruption and crime that plagued Baltimore, launching his attacks with surgical precision. However, these intellectual curiosities aren’t the only things that make The Wire great, especially when you consider how much emotional investment the show demands from its audience, armed with a profound pathos for a sociopolitical landscape whose children have been abandoned by twisted lawmakers out to nab their own profits.
