CR 045: For Actor Andre Royo, the Joy is in the Performance
“The Wire” actor discusses the ups and downs of playing Bubbles and how performing has helped him navigate his darkest days.
As an actor, there may be no bigger blessing or curse than portraying one of the most memorable characters on one of the most critically acclaimed television series of all time. Andre Royo discovered this firsthand after landing the role of Bubbles—the recovering addict with the heart of gold—in HBO’s The Wire. Referred to by The New York Times as “the emotional heart of the series,” Bubbles was one of the few characters of the show’s five-season run who genuinely wanted to be a better person. And though the actor has played many other characters since The Wire’s 2008 finale—among them, Thirsty Rawlings in Empire and Spencer in Beautiful Boy—he admits Bubbles is still a major influence on his life, for better or worse.
“Growing up in New York, I saw addiction and homeless people as a problem,” Royo says. “Then playing the character, I felt so sad that I engaged in ignoring them. I was blessed to have done this because it changed my perspective. It changed me as a person. And other people came up to me and said, ‘You made me feel differently about strangers.’ That was beautiful. But then, I wasn’t working. It was, ‘You’re an incredible actor, but you can’t play a cop. You can’t play a general.’ It was hard to get that next gig, because either they thought I was really a junkie or all they saw me as was comical. One agent, when I first got to L.A., said, ‘You’re a Black Paul Giamatti.’ And I was like, ‘That’s great! Paul is great!’ They don’t write roles for Black Paul Giamattis. [Laughs] But, I never shook Bubbles, because Bubbles made me a better person. The fact that people in 2025 still yell out ‘Bubbles!’ or talk about this show—I’m blessed. I don’t know if I will ever want to or could shed Bubs.”
Over a recent Zoom call, Royo and I chatted about his early days as an actor, why he wasn’t interested in auditioning for The Wire, and how art has helped him through his darkest days.
SANDRA EBEJER: I want to start by talking about your background. When did you know you wanted to be an actor?
ANDRE ROYO: I guess it was just my thing. I don’t know if I decided it would be my thing. I remember my mom telling me, “You could be anything you want to be.” And I told her I wouldn’t mind acting. She said, “That sounds like a good fit for you. Just try to be good at it.” And that was it. I grew up understanding that’s what I wanted to be. My issue was I didn’t know where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. Sooner or later, I found myself at the right place, right time, doing construction. A friend of mine’s girlfriend was going to HB Studios. I went to HB Studios with her and that gave me a starting point. After that, I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do but try to be an actor.
Staying in the business is the real prize, so to speak. That’s been interesting, because it comes and goes. It flows. You’ve got to deal with peaks and valleys. You’ve got to deal with boredom. You’ve got to deal with frustration. You’ve got to deal with so many things that come into your space of play that if it’s not fun anymore, I wouldn’t know what I would do. I’m always trying to sustain a joy in my craft. And it always has to outweigh the let downs or the frustrations. If the joy can stay on top by a large percentage, I’m good. If it doesn’t, I’m a little nervous of what’s next.
At the time that you were starting out, who were your influences? Were there any actors that you wanted to emulate?
The person that stood out for me was Paul Newman. Paul Newman just seemed real smooth, real cool. He seemed like the everyday man, but also he could punch you in the face. He seemed innocent, then he seemed like an asshole. He was just very diverse. And there were certain movies, of course, that impacted me. The Hustler is my favorite movie, just on the dreamer being successful at what he does and then he’s punished for it because it’s too cocky. And then it was the duo of Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. At the time, they were great. Reminded me of me and my buddies. So when I watched them on Uptown Saturday Night or Let’s Do It Again, I thought it’d be great to grow up like that, just having fun, having a regular job but getting into shenanigans. Those three made it look really fun.
You know, I went to a movie theater with my boys in my teenage years. We went to see Rocky. The power of storytelling blew me away. Because that last fight scene I’m looking at a couple of hundred Black kids rooting for Rocky and I was like, “Why? Apollo Creed is Muhammad Ali. Why are we rooting for the white guy to win?” Because he wasn’t white no more. He was the underdog. I walked away understanding how powerful this medium is. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I can do something that can have impact culturally?” I love the fact that people from the neighborhood see me, [and] it makes them feel like they can do it, too. Being somebody’s inspiration is fantastic. That’s heartfelt. Combine that with doing something in cinema that lasts forever, that’s pretty cool. That’s the gem right there. So that’s my goal all the time.
Speaking of impactful, I want to talk about The Wire. Do you remember what your thoughts were about the show and Bubbles when you first read the script?
At this point, I’m doing theater. I got my own little theater company. I’m making a little name for myself. I was feeling good. I did a benefit play with Rosie Perez and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the next day I got a call from my manager about some show on HBO. They said, “It’s about the drug life. There’s a character named Bubbles.” And I said, “No.” I thought that was stupid. It didn’t make sense to me. Why call him Bubbles? And you gotta remember, we’re not getting scripts, we’re getting sides. So it’s a different vibe. I’m reading sides, and I’m like, “I don’t know what this is.” I didn’t want to go.
And then my manager challenged me. She was like, “It’s not an offer. [Laughs] Don’t get it wrong. They didn’t offer you the role. Go and audition and let these people know that you can act. These people never met you. Get the part, then say no, big guy.” I’m like, “Oh, okay. If you want me to do it that way, fine. That makes sense.” That gave me a challenge to be really good at it, but I wasn’t pressured because I didn’t want the part. It was just go play, show what I can do, and then bounce. When I got there and had the first audition, it went well. It wasn’t a big room. It was just [casting director] Alexa Fogel, who I had known; we crossed paths every once in a while. But I didn’t take it seriously. At that time, there were certain roles that if you played, you might be typecast. I thought I was going to do theater. I wasn’t as hungry for film and television as much as theater. And, like I said, I was getting a little name for myself.
So I went to five auditions and then I got the script. I read the script, and it was long and it was slow. [Laughs] My character showed up in three scenes. At the third audition, the room is bigger. Now there’s [writer-producer] Ed Burns, [producer] Nina Noble, and [director] Clark Johnson, who did the pilot. And I can see from their faces that it was something serious. I can see that they weren’t trying to make fun of any trope. They were just telling us some real deals about the streets. So after five auditions, yeah, I wanted the job. And then finally I got the job, and my manager was like, “So you gonna turn it down?” And I was like, “Hell, no! This is HBO. This is awesome!”
We did it. It was great. Even on set while we were shooting, we were all in. It was one of the best experiences, because it felt like theater. We were in Baltimore. We’re in a hotel. Nobody’s really going outside, because it looked like hell. [Laughs] And we didn’t want to spend our per diem. It’s the first gig for a lot of us. And all that practicing, rehearsing, just wanting it to be good because we got an understanding from the table read and from [writer-producer] David Simon and Ed Burns that it was story first. So we all jumped in and worked very hard to get the story across. And then we saw the pilot, and we were like, “This is slow as shit. This sucks.” Some of us felt scared, like we thought this was gonna be a one-up. Everybody was like, “What Law & Order you gonna do? I’m gonna do SVU. You gonna do Criminal Intent?” We thought we were going back to New York and going back to the hustle. We didn’t think [The Wire] was gonna get picked up.
When it did, we were shocked, and we were happy. And then we started putting in the work. Little by little, scene by scene, we all knew that we were doing something important. What’s great about being in this bubble of everybody being on the same team to create this piece of storytelling is we don’t know how it’s gonna land. We’re just gonna do it, get it done, respect each other’s work. We all did the best we could without knowing or thinking about how it would land. And it landed like a thud. [Laughs] We got canceled every year.
Then all of a sudden, shit drastically turned. The world caught on. You get a Black president in the White House who says on 60 minutes this is his favorite show. All of a sudden, this show is important. It’s intelligent. And that was great. It was a great feeling to see it turn around. Then it was weird, because some of us didn’t get nominations or the work wasn’t coming like we thought. As it’s [becoming a] hit, everybody’s thinking, “We’re going to get the big checks and be movie stars now!” And it didn’t work out that way. But it’s a special piece of television in my career that has done so much more for me, emotionally and creatively, than professionally.
The Wire is something that you’ll be remembered for, but when you look back on what you’ve done so far, what are you proudest of in your career?
I’m fond of it all. Every time I step on set, I’m fond of still being a participant, still enjoying the craft. There are certain characters that stood out to me, mostly in independent films, because that’s where I feel like I get a bigger palette to paint with. I did a movie called Hunter Gatherer that I loved. I did a movie called Calloused Hands that I loved.
Empire was a funny show because [there] was craziness going on. The impact of that show is undeniable. It was so huge and such a big departure from Bubbles. Just being on a different side of the Black experience was fun. I did a one-man show two years ago of Eric Bogosian’s Drinking in America. It was after COVID. I was thinking, “Acting is getting boring. I feel like everything I’m doing is the same as the other. I don’t know if I’m enjoying it.” I didn’t know how bad work was gonna be after COVID because it looked like it was done. Then it started coming back and set life sucked after COVID. The vibe was different. I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the game. Then I said, “You know what? I gotta go back to where I started: theater.” You do a one-man show in New York, and it’s sink or swim. The energy made me feel like I was young again. I had a great run. It was fun. New York Times critic pick—that felt great. So doing that was probably the biggest highlight, because it reconfirmed I’m still in a good space mentally and creatively to pull off shit.
You also starred in a Chris Stapleton music video after your mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. What role has acting and your work played in helping you through tough times?
Man, I feel for people who don’t have an outlet. I’ve been [having] conversations with fellow actors. We start talking about the woes, but knowing how blessed we are that we have an outlet for whatever we’re going through, like the pain I was going through as a caregiver or the pain I was going through with my sobriety and addiction to alcohol. If I didn’t have a story or character that I could put some of that in and make it more useful, I don’t know where I would be. Doing Drinking in America and talking about 13 characters dealing with addiction, and I’m right in the middle of my sobriety, was so great because I could unpack all the pain and all the joy into something that can help somebody else.
The last thing I did was the music video, and that was awesome. That’s how my universe works. I’m in the middle of caregiving, and I get a DM: “We want you to be in a country music video.” Spam! No! They’re not saying who they are. “Can we send you the lookbook? It’s for Chris Stapleton.” I was like, “Who the fuck is Chris Stapleton?” I’m asking my circle. “Kenny Rogers? The guy from American Idol? Blake Shelton?” “No. Some new guy, Chris Stapleton.” “No clue.”
So they sent me the lookbook. There’s this old man in a red suit, dancing, and he dies and he’s dancing to heaven. I’m like, “I don’t need this in my life. This is not the energy I want.” Then my manager goes, “Chris Stapleton’s a big deal.” I [listen to] his music. He’s good. I mean, not my [kind of] music, but he’s got talent. He’ll make you sway. So they said, “Let’s do a Zoom.” Now I’m mad at my manager. New manager, same technique. “Just talk to them. It’s good!” I do the Zoom, I’m looking at these people, and they’re talking like we’re gonna do this. “We want you to dance like Christopher Walken.” I’m like, “Alright. That’s good company to keep. But why do I recognize your faces?” When they said, “Our mom was your makeup artist in The Wire; we were the little kids running around,” I just felt like this is a no-brainer. I gotta do this. This is the universe going, “Go dance, motherfucker. You need to dance. You’re dealing with a lot of shit right now. Go dance.”
Sometimes I laugh because I get certain roles that I need to have. People ask me about therapy and so far, it’s been my craft. I’ll get a role that speaks this certain line, and I’ll go, “Oh. That’s about the death of my best friend right in that line.” I love it. I love that I have it. I love that it still serves me. And I try to give back by being professional and being good.
If you could go back to the earliest days on The Wire, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself?
I would tell myself to learn the business, not [just] the craft. I wouldn’t have been blindsided by certain things that derailed me. Like, “What? I was too good?” or “What? You can’t have two Wire actors in the show at the same time?” [There were] so many weird things coming at me that I wasn’t prepared for, and I wish I was more prepared. I would tell myself, “Learn the business and spread out a little bit more with your creativity. Be a writer. Be an editor. Learn this all so that you can stay within this business and help yourself tell your own stories.”
Spike Lee was the first dude from my generation, right? We understood that we can be filmmakers. We saw him and the way that he created. We were like, “He’s our guy.” I wrote a monologue and auditioned for him. He loved it. He was like, “Oh, shit. You wrote that?” And he hired me. He did not hire me to act, and so I did not understand the blessing. He did a movie called Bamboozled. I auditioned. I lost to Mos Def, which makes sense. He’s dope. I love him to death. But [Spike] said, “I want you to write a monologue and I’m gonna put you in the ending credits.” I was like, “That’s what I get? The ending credits? They want me to write something for the ending credits? This is bullshit.” I did not see that’s a victory. Now, I wish I would have wrote more. I would have curated that relationship. So, again, learn the business more.
When I interviewed Jermaine Crawford, I asked him if there were any adults that he was close with on The Wire, and one of the people he mentioned was you. I’m curious what your advice would be to younger actors who maybe are just getting started out in this business.
I think kids understand their self-worth a lot more [nowadays]. I think this generation is not afraid of emotion like we were. They’re a lot more honest. They get celebrated for their authenticity or being able to show their emotions. The kids that come up to me when I go back to New York, they’re more keen to be emotional. They’re more keen to understand that they can create their own content. They can create their own stories. They know how to self-promote better than we did. I think they understand the business and they understand the hustle. I don’t know emotionally if they know how to bounce back.
I would say, “Don’t be so sensitive. You can’t dictate or relegate how somebody else is gonna react, or how what you say is gonna land, but if they don’t fuck with you, it’s not the end of the world. You’re not going to make it if you worry about everybody’s opinion.” I don’t know how they do it with the Twitter and all that. I see these people going into massive fights. Like, really, you’re that mad? Just turn it off. The engagement doesn’t make sense to me, because growing up, if somebody didn’t fuck with you, then you just didn’t fuck with them, but you don’t go to them and have a full debate.
So that would be the advice I give: Don’t be too sensitive. Watch out with the vices. This world is all about finding a vice you can handle, because you’re going to be addicted to something. Whether it’s good or bad, it becomes a routine. So find an addiction you can handle and just be good to yourself and you’ll be alright.
To learn more about Andre Royo, find him on Instagram.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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