Lean, baritone-voiced character actor Reg E. Cathey had a successful career on the television guest-star circuit for years before earning respect as a reliable and talented supporting player in a number of cable dramas. A favorite of producers (most notably David Simon and Tom Fontana) for his quiet intensity on screen, Cathey most recently won plaudits for his role as Norman Wilson, the well-connected deputy campaign manager of mayoral candidate Thomas ‘Tommy’ Carcetti on the critically acclaimed drama, “The Wire” (HBO, 2002-07).
Born on Aug. 18, 1958, in Huntsville, AL, Cathey made his bones treading the boards in a number of Broadway and off-Broadway productions in the early 1980’s. An accomplished Shakespearean actor, Cathey landed prominent roles in such Bardian classics as “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Richard III,” “Hamlet,” and “The Merchant of Venice” before moving to Los Angeles to pursue work in film and television. Cathey’s first major screen debut was a guest spot on the popular action drama “Spenser: For Hire” (ABC, 1985-88). There, Cathey got a chance to share some screen time with star Robert Urich, as well as his longtime friend and colleague from his theatre days, Avery Brooks. More guest-starring roles followed on such shows as “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (Syndicated, 1987-1994), “ER” (NBC, 1994- ), “Arli$$” (HBO, 1996-2002) and “Third Watch” (NBC, 1999-2005).
Parlaying his quick television success into feature work, Cathey copped several small parts in a string of high-profile movies in the nineties, among them – “The Mask” (1994), “Clear and Present Danger” (1994), “Tank Girl” (1995) and the gruesome thriller, “Se7en” (1995). Cathey’s greatest successes, however, remained largely in television. While working on the telefilm, “Homicide: The Movie” (NBC, 2000), Cathey so impressed the show’s creator-producer, David Simon, that Simon cast him in his next project – a gritty, urban drama mini-series called “The Corner” (HBO, 2000). Set, like “Homicide,” in and around the city of Baltimore, “The Corner” was the story of one family’s struggle to survive on the front lines, amid the crossfire of a raging drug war – A theme that Simon would later re-visit in even greater detail in his next series, “The Wire.”
After “The Corner,” Cathey was quickly snapped up by Simon’s friend, fellow “Homicide” producer, Tom Fontana for his new HBO series – the groundbreaking prison drama, “Oz” (HBO, 1997-2003). Cast as Martin Querns, the hard-driving new warden of Oswald Penitentiary, Cathey was a consistent stand-out among Oz’s myriad ensemble of recurring characters.
Aside from taking a small cameo role as the villainous “Dirty Dee” in the mercilessly unfunny comedy, “Pootie Tang” (2001), Cathey, by and large, stuck mainly with television during the new millennium. Not long after the cancellation of “Oz,” Cathey returned to HBO to work on David Simon’s latest project, the aforementioned drama series, “The Wire.” Introduced in the 2006 fourth season opener, entitled “Boys of Summer,” Cathey tackled the recurring role of Norman Wilson, the pessimistic, but highly shrewd political advisor to mayoral hopeful, Councilman Tommy Carcetti (Aiden Gillan).