James Ransone, a character actor who played an impulsive, drug-dealing dockworker in the iconic HBO series \u201cThe Wire\u201d and later appeared in horror films \u201cSinister\u201d and \u201cIt: Chapter Two,\u201d died in Los Angeles on Friday. He was 46.<\/p>\n
According to the L.A. County medical examiner\u2019s office, Ransone died by suicide.<\/p>\n
A native of Maryland, Ransone studied theater at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in the Baltimore County community of Towson, before breaking into television a few years later.<\/p>\n
Ransone appeared in several prominent horror films. He portrayed Max in \u201cThe Black Phone,\u201d a film about a teen boy who is abducted by a serial killer. The movie was based on a short story written by Joe Hill \u2014 Stephen King\u2019s son \u2014 and starred Ethan Hawke. Ransone reprised his role in the sequel, \u201cBlack Phone II.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ransone appeared in another horror film with Hawke, taking on the role of Deputy in \u201cSinister.\u201d The movie centers around a writer who finds snuff films in his new house. Ransone also acted alongside Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain and Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd in the follow-up \u201cIt: Chapter Two,\u201d playing Eddie Kaspbrak, one of several characters being tormented by killer clown Pennywise.<\/p>\n
While promoting the film, he defended the horror genre against those who consider it a \u201cthrowaway\u201d category.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo those people I\u2019ll say, \u2018Tell that to William Friedkin or Stanley Kubrick,\u2019\u201d Ransone said in an interview with Anthem Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n He also had roles in the shows \u201cGeneration Kill,\u201d \u201cTreme\u201d and \u201cBosch.\u201d His final TV appearance came in the a second-season episode of Peacock\u2019s comedy crime show \u201cPoker Face,\u201d which aired in June.<\/p>\n But he will likely be remembered most for his turn as Ziggy Sobotka in \u201cThe Wire,\u201d a dark and uncompromising drama \u2014 hailed as one of the best TV shows of all time \u2014 that explored various aspects of Baltimore and its institutions. Ransone appeared in all 12 episodes of the show\u2019s second season, which focused on the decimation of the city\u2019s docks.<\/p>\n He played the son of a dock union leader, whose scheming charisma got him into trouble with other low-level criminals \u2014 but also endeared him to some viewers. In one notable story arc, he bought a duck, which he paraded around with a diamond necklace; the bird later died because he fed it too much alcohol. <\/p>\n The critically acclaimed HBO series aired from 2002 to 2008 and starred Dominic West, Michael Kenneth Williams, John Doman, Idris Elba, Wood Harris, Lance Reddick<\/a>, Wendell Pierce, Frankie Faison, Lawrence Gilliard Jr. and more.<\/p>\n In a statement released to the Baltimore Banner news site, \u201cWire\u201d creator David Simon called Ransone\u2019s death \u201cgrievous and awful.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHe committed not only to the work but to the camaraderie that turns every good film production into something familial and caring,\u201d said the statement by Simon, who also cast Ransone in \u201cGeneration Kill\u201d and \u201cTreme.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview on MSNBC after the release of the movie \u201cSinister 2,\u201d Ransone said he was proud of the work he had done on \u201cThe Wire\u201d but called it a \u201creal double-edged sword\u201d in that people would forever typecast him as Ziggy. He described himself as a horror film fan and spoke of how working with filmmakers such as Simon, Sean Baker and Spike Lee had opened his eyes to many social inequities.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t immediately clear whether Ransone was living in L.A. at the time of his death. A man with his name is listed on the California secretary of state\u2019s website as living in the Fairfax neighborhood.<\/p>\n LAPD spokesperson Officer Norma Eisenman said that around 2 p.m. Friday a police squad responded to a 911 call about an undetermined death at that location. Inside, she said, officers found a man who appeared to have taken his own life. <\/p>\n Because foul play isn\u2019t suspected, the case is being handled by the medical examiner\u2019s office, Eisenman said, adding that she could not confirm that the man was Ransone or provide other details about the 911 call.<\/p>\n TMZ reported that Ransone was a married father of two, and wife Jamie McPhee posted a fundraiser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in her social media profile.<\/p>\n In recent years, Ransone came out as a sexual abuse survivor and also spoke openly about his struggles with addiction. <\/p>\n In 2016, he told Interview Magazine that he had gotten sober at age 27 \u201cafter being on heroin for five years.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cPeople think I got sober working on the \u2018Generation Kill.\u2019 I didn\u2019t. I sobered up six or seven months before that,\u201d he told the publication. \u201cI remember going to Africa and I was going to be there for almost a year. I was number two on the call sheet and I was like, \u2018I think somebody made a mistake. This is too much responsibility for me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Ransone in 2021 disclosed that he had been sexually abused by a former tutor at his childhood home in Phoenix, Md. over a six-month span in 1992, according to the Baltimore Banner. He revealed the allegations on Instagram, where he shared a lengthy note that he had sent his alleged abuser, the Banner reported. A police investigation was later launched into the allegations but closed without charges being filed.<\/p>\n Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources<\/p>\n If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States\u2019 first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text \u201cHOME\u201d to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Ransone, a character actor who played an impulsive, drug-dealing dockworker in the iconic HBO series \u201cThe Wire\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":463473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,13136,84998,4446,19226,1020,211192,76663,1815,211161,2961,224,5337,3196,3546,34445,143231,6620,9924],"class_list":{"0":"post-463472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-call","11":"tag-chapter","12":"tag-death","13":"tag-few-year","14":"tag-film","15":"tag-generation-kill","16":"tag-horror-film","17":"tag-interview","18":"tag-james-ransone","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-movie","23":"tag-people","24":"tag-role","25":"tag-sinister","26":"tag-time","27":"tag-wire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115760981929398793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}