Vale: Lance Reddick | TV Tonight

US character actor Lance Reddick, best known for Oz, The Wire, Bosch and John Wick has died, aged 60.

He died “suddenly” on Friday his publicist said in a statement, due to natural causes.

Reddick’s breakthrough role in 2000 was as Johnny Basil, a doomed undercover officer sent to prison who becomes an addict in Oz.

“I was never interested in television,” he said in 2011.

“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 ’60s and ’70s.

“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.”

On The Wire he played Lt Cedric Daniels, on Fringe he was special agent Phillip Broyles, and he featured as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving in Bosch.

His other TV credits included Lost, Wilfred, Law & Order, American Horror Story, Key & Peele, Numb3rs, CSI: Miami, Castle, Young Sheldon, Resident Evil, The West Wing and the film One Night in Miami.

He played the multi-skilled Continental Hotel concierge Charon in the John Wick movies, plus roles in Oldboy, White House Down, I Dreamed of Africa, The Way of War, The Siege, Godzilla vs Kong, Great Expectations.

“I’m an artist at heart,” he once told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. “I feel that I’m very good at what I do.

“When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a Black man and I wasn’t pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.”

Source: ABC