Wendell Pierce on Jack Ryan and the show's uncanny prediction of world affairs
Wendell Pierce in Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime Video.
Like many of us, Wendell Pierce couldn’t believe what he was seeing when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in early 2022. But for the veteran actor – best known for playing detective William 'Bunk' Moreland in The Wire – the shock carried an additional register of deja vu. He had, after all, spent the previous year starring in a conspiracy thriller in which reactionary forces in Moscow tried to boost Russia’s ailing prestige by invading neighbouring countries and then attempted to start World War III. In the worst way imaginable, life was imitating art.
“Let me tell you, every show we have done – every season is written almost two years ago on and they usually comes out a year afterwards,” says Pierce, speaking affably over a computer connection from London.
“There are events that happen in the world [in which life imitates art]. But we are a fictional show. We’re just exploring fictional ideas. And so [those parallels with the Russian invasion] was something that happened only by chance. But it was something that people noticed.”
The show was Jack Ryan, the latest screen adaptation of the Tom Clancy espionage novels, which sold over 100 million copies. It has now returned for a fourth and final season with Pierce playing CIA official James Greer, friend to agent Jack Ryan (John Krasinksi, taking over the mantle from Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford).
Something of an overlooked gem in the bloated streaming landscape, Jack Ryan updates Clancy’s Cold War thrillers for the 21st century. Where the novels were gruff and full of huff, the slow is slick-and clean burning.
It’s also more than just a caper. In series four, Ryan and Greer must tackle institutional dysfunction within the CIA itself after an off-the-book operation goes amiss. In the corridors of power, the natural temptation is towards a cover-up. To their credit, Greer and Ryan insist on pursuing the truth. The message is that big institutions, paid for by the taxpayer, must be guarded vigilantly, lest they slip below standards expected by the public. Irish viewers will find lots to enjoy.
Pierce loves it too, and not just because he’s one of the stars. He thinks TV is the perfect medium for Jack Ryan – who has had a rough time at the box office, where the janky Patriot Games and Clear And Pleasant Danger followed the fantastic Hunt for Red October.
“I loved the movies, I’m a fan of the book,” he says of the Clancy-verse. “And I think that John is the perfect Jack Ryan. Because in the long form, you can really take the time to develop the character. We have put a mark on the character and on the world of Jack Ryan. For me, he’s the best Jack.”
James Earl Jones plays Greer in the movies. Wendell’s take is different: his James Greer is more conflicted about the rights and wrongs of espionage work. He often worries if the CIA is doing the right thing. It is a thread that connects the series to previous shows in which he has starred, such as Treme, about post-Katrina New Orleans. And especially, The Wire, David Simon’s unflinching exploration of the rot caused by corruption within institutions, in which Pierce plays a police officer trying, sometimes in vain, to stay on the straight and narrow.
“That’s the sort of work that I like to do,” he says. “I’m really happy that they went down that road. That it’s not a trivial thing what these men or women are doing. And it’s very important that if we are to have the societies that we want to have, that we have to be proactive [against corruption]. And also not be naive. There’s an ugly side to human nature that we can’t be ignorant to.”
The James Greer we meet in the Amazon series is not a happy man. The pressures of his job have wreaked havoc on his family life. He’s divorced, and though his relationship with his wife is cordial on the surface, there is a still a lot of emotional wreckage to be confronted. Greer nods: when he researched what it was like to work for the CIA, what he took away from it was that this career extracts a high personal price.
“That was something that I really learned,” he says. “Officers told me how much of a toll it was. One consultant, I don’t want to say his name – he told me how [working in the intelligence services] took a toll on his marriage.” He adds that the consultant – a former CIA operative – was married twice. His first wife didn’t want anything to do with his job: she didn’t need to know or want to know. The second took the opposite approach.
“He was often having dinner parties with known intelligence officers from other countries. He was trying to assess them. And they all knew. They were playing these diplomatic roles as military attaché and diplomatic attaché. All knowing what the others are doing. His wife would they would sit down after the dinner parties and suss out who might be a good asset to approach.”
Pierce was born in New Orleans in 1963, the son of a teacher and World War II veteran (who had served in one of the US military’s infamous segregated units). He graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School in 1985 and went on to work both in TV and in cinema (he played a lawyer in the Twilight vampire movies).
He is also a supporter of Dublin soccer team, St Patrick’s Athletic. Two years ago, however, he was in the headlines for reasons that had nothing to do with acting or the League of Ireland, when he labelled as “insignificant” the Oprah Winfrey interview given by Meghan Markle, his co-star in legal drama Suits and her husband, Harry Windsor.
He later clarified his remarks after hearing Meghan had talked about her mental health.
“My comments were about the obsession around the royal family, and it shouldn’t take priority over the deaths of the pandemic,” he said. “I’m not into the royals, and my point was we are all complicit in this whirlwind of royal obsession that feeds the tabloids while so much death is around us; that’s the wrong priority. I didn’t see the interview or know it was about her suicidal thoughts. I would never demean a person’s mental health,”
Pierce added. “My words were twisted. A classic tabloid trick. That was not the spirit of what I was saying.”
Amazon has asked that Pierce not be asked about Meghan. There is, however, time for one last question. So we circle back to The Wire and a recent tweet by David Simon from the picket-line of the Hollywood writer’s strike – to which Pierce gave his support. One source of contention is the disagreement between writers and streaming companies. Wendell backed Simon. Now, here he is, promoting a streaming show. Where does he think the strike will ultimately lead?
“First of all, it will be resolved because that’s what happens. Whenever we get to new technology, it’s about the sides coming together and understanding we’re in a new world. People are going to resolve it really soon. We’re going to get to the common ground. It’s just going to take a little longer. The streamers and the writers will all do well once we find common ground.”
- Season four of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan comes to Prime Video on Friday, June 30
