3. Russell "Stringer" Bell - The Wire
Breaking Bad is presently gaining lots of plaudits as the very best that television drama has to offer and it is pretty amazing. I watched seasons 4 and 5.1 in just three days last week. It's edge-of-the-seat, compelling stuff, but still nowhere near as good as The Wire. Big Driis played Stringer Bell, the consigliere to drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. Bell is a drug dealer who perceives himself as a reformer of the drug game. He attends business class at the local community college and implements basic economic principles to the Baltimore drug trade convincing rival drug dealers to set up a Co-op for the distribution of quality product. He oversees the acquisition of a property portfolio and attempts to make a move into the corporate world. The portrayal of a social-climbing, lowlife drug dealer who employs truanting school kids to distribute his package needed an actor of great range, and in his first major role Idris not only pulls it off, he makes it look easy. His two best scenes are opposite Wood Harris as Avon Barksdale. The first when Bell confesses to having had Avon's nephew killed, and the second when they're on a rooftop reminiscing against a starlit night sky even as both characters know they've betrayed each other. Stringer Bell is the poster boy for brooding menace, but somehow Idris Elba manages to elicit our empathy by conveying an underlying vulnerability. His is a peerless performance which helped make The Wire the best TV series ever made. FACT!