A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty

01 July 2009

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In the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop

Ah, Jimmy McNulty. Jimmy is a womanising, drunken, obnoxious but strangely lovable detective who is all tough, working-class Irish-American and therefore does not come from Sheffield and did not attend Eton, like Dominic. People are always shocked to learn Dominic comes from Sheffield and went to Eton but as I always tell them and will tell you now: guys, he was acting. It’s what he does. Still, I think it is reasonable to ask him why he thinks he was cast. So, Dominic, why do you think you were cast? ‘Because,’ he says, ‘I was cheap, I was available, and shooting started in two weeks.’ What did you make of the script for the first episode? ‘It didn’t make any sense at all.‘ (It doesn’t. The Wire people are special because they stick with it, yo.) He signed up for five years never imagining it would go past the pilot, as is mostly the way with these things. It eventually ran for five seasons and 60 episodes, between 2002 and 2008, but it was never a commercial hit and every season it faced being axed. ‘The critics saved us,’ he says. ‘They were so hyperbolic we couldn’t really be cancelled.’ He never really wanted the part, never expected it to last so long, and moaned, moaned, moaned throughout. ‘It’s so great,’ he says, ‘that, against all my better judgment and my wishes, I’m involved with this thing that is superior to anything I’ve ever done and now I’m inextricably linked to greatness.’ He can speak in long, deliciously articulate sentences like this. It’s probably Eton.

Whatever, we decide to drink to being inextricably linked to greatness. He orders the wine, because he’s the one who knows about wine. I’d read, even, that he is something of a wine connoisseur but he says no, not really, in his case it’s ‘just a synonym for being a drunk’. The waiter brings us the most delicious complimentary vegetable fritto misto (so scrumptious, I would even eat it off Michael Winner. Maybe.) The waiter then says there is only one Dover sole left — wood-roasted, with red and golden beetroot — would either of us like it held? I love eating with famous people. It’s making me happy. Dominic says yes, he will have the sole, so I choose the wild salmon with chilli, basil, fresh borlotti beans and rocket salad. I’d have had the beef, normally, but I always think fish is better when you are having a fat day. It makes you feel less of a fatty, somehow.

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ian skidmore

July 2nd, 2009 12:21pm Report this comment

The Wire is great - except I can hardly understand a word that is said and I do not know why I stay up so late to watch it.I fall asleep halfway through.As a result I have to video it or I would never know how an episode ends. Why when I have vidoed it don't I go to bed before it comes on ?. Don't ask
By the way it is obviously possible to go to Eton an stil not be a gentleman. He ought to have offered you the Dover Sole.And what sort of a crummy restauant ofers you free wine and only has one Dover Sole?It would never have happened in those Welsh restaurants you were so rude about