Actor who survived the mean streets of Baltimore and thrived, despite the odds
Davon Williams, who recently played Scar in the Hong Kong Disneyland’s Festival of the Lion King, recalls his great-uncle from The Wire and explains why he runs away from success
Troubled parents My parents were still together around the time I was born, in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1987. But by the time I was five or six I was living with my grandparents. My mum was here and there but my dad had got into trouble and ended up in prison.
He remained oddly present in my life, whether it was through a phone call or when we would go and visit. I have three half-sisters and two half-brothers on my dad’s side and I don’t know how he pulled it off – it’s an awful lot of commitment to six people when there’s only a certain amount of time you can be on the phone.
Tiger grandma My mum didn’t feature much early on. Then one day in 1997, I came home from school and she was back. She had been in rehab. Once she got herself together and found her own place I moved in. That was great – she was the getaway from the stress that was my grandma, who was always giving me tiger-mum vibes.
With my mum we could stay up, go out, we got a cat … but then my grades started slipping and she had to become a mum. I had to adjust to the fact that she was my mum. We had to establish that relationship again.
Drug money I went to private school. It was far removed from home life. I lived in the slums of Baltimore, in the northeast where there’s a street called North Avenue, which is the drug capital. Living there, with that poverty, and then going to private school – it was two different worlds. The way it was told to me, my grandma and grandad worked hard to send me to private school. But one day, when I was in high school, it suddenly came to me that, wait – my dad sells drugs.
My dad’s uncle was “Little Melvin” Williams (a heroin dealer who provided inspiration for and acted in the HBO series The Wire). I don’t know much about that relationship and clearly my dad tried to keep us away from that, but one day it all hit me and I started to question that story. However, when it comes to that side of my dad’s life, it’s hard to get an answer – he’s trying to protect us.
