How Michael K Williams got the distinctive scar that helped launch his career

‘We managed to escape with our lives, barely, that night,’ actor said in 2014

A fight that broke out while the late actor Michael K Williams was celebrating his 25th birthday left him with a large scar down his face, giving him a distinctive look that led to his break-out film role.

The 54-year-old actor, who was found dead in his apartment on Monday (6 September), told National Public Radio in 2014 that he sustained the injury outside a “popping party” at a bar in Queens, New York.

“I saw that two of my other friends were being surrounded by some dudes who I didn’t know and it looked like they were about to get jumped,” he said.

“And I said, ‘Yo, I’m ready to leave. Let’s go back. I’m going to go back home now.’”

But Williams said that “this one dude kept pacing behind me”.

“He kept like, you know, like sucking his teeth, and I’m looking – I’m like, ‘Yo, so what’s up dude? Yo bro, what’s your problem?’” he said.

“And the dude wiped his hand across his mouth and just – what I thought appeared to be – smacked me, but what he did was he spit a razor,” Willams added. “He was positioning the razor in his mouth to get between his middle finger and his ring finger, and then he just went – swiped me down my face, and this cut my face.

“It was actually the first hit of the fight. So we managed to escape with our lives, barely, that night.”

Michael K Williams (Getty)

The scar ran down the centre of his forehead, across his nose and right cheek before ending near his mouth.

The incident changed Williams’s career forever. While he had previously been starring in music videos, directors were suddenly eyeing him for “thug roles”.

It wasn’t long before the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who was filming the 1996 movie Bullet, “happened to see a Polaroid picture of me and was like, ‘Yo, this dude looks thugged out enough that he could play my little brother’”.

In another interview in The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Williams spoke about his decision not to fight back against his attacker. “I knew that I did not want blood on my hands. And I honestly believe that because I let it go, I didn’t harbour any ill feelings, I didn’t react in a negative way in revenge, I believe that something happened inside, spiritually.

“It’s why people look at this [scar] and see a thing of beauty. Had I taken the other route, I think it would have made me ugly — from the inside.”

After starring in Bullet, Williams landed roles in Law & Order, The Sopranos and The Wire.

His performance of stick-up man Omar Little in The Wire was the most famous of his career.

After hearing of the actor’s death, David Simon, co-creator of The Wire, tweeted: “Too gutted right now to say all that ought to be said. Michael was a fine man and a rare talent and on our journey together he always deserved the best words. And today those words won’t come.”

Read other celebrity and fan tributes to the actor here.