Native Baltimorean Josh Charles on Returning to his Hometown to Play Daniel Hersl in ‘We Own This City’

When you think of actors who might play a dirty cop, Josh Charles might not be the first to come to mind. But as Josh pointed out during our conversation, this is actually his third time playing such a character (Four Brothers, SWAT), but of course, playing “bad cop” for David Simon (the creator of The Wire) and George Pelecanos comes with a greater level of gravitas. 

In discussing a dark period for the Baltimore police force after the death of Freddie Gray, Josh and I dug deep—not only into his character and the choices he made in portraying real-life officer Daniel Hersl, but also the systemic issues that impact policing in Baltimore and in the nation at large. 

Awards Daily: You are from Baltimore. Was that part of the allure of being a part of We Own This City?

Josh Charles: Born and raised in Baltimore. I’m still very close to the city. I feel very connected to my hometown. All my sports teams are there. My family is there, I go back often, and it’s the kind of town that if you’re from there – maybe more so than the bigger cities – we take a lot of pride in our city, warts and all. Therefore, it’s a story that I knew very well. I follow everything in Baltimore, not just sports, but politics too. I care deeply about the city and I see it struggling, and I’m always trying to enlighten myself and see what’s happening and how we can improve it.

I followed Justin Fenton (author of the non-fiction book, We Own This City) when he was at the Baltimore Sun, and I still do now that he just left and is starting at the Baltimore Banner – a new online publication that’s really great. So, I reached out to him a long time ago before this series was even a reality on Twitter, just a DM, to tell him what great work he was doing. We kind of struck up a friendship and then when I read the book, I thought this is a movie – the story of the Gun Trace Task Force – this is a film, or a TV show. Somebody’s going to make this. Of course, the perfect people made it – David Simon and George Pelecanos, and their whole team. I didn’t think too much of it after that, and then it came up as a possibility for me to be a part of it. I was thrilled and excited to be a part of telling this, admittedly painful, but really important story in my city’s history. 

Awards Daily: What was the process of getting cast like?

Josh Charles: I didn’t have to jump through hoops, but I did have to read. I did have to audition, and given the COVID of it all, it was this weird Zoom audition. Then we had another meeting, about thirty minutes after, and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be about  – I thought I didn’t get it and they were just going to tell me nicely. But they just wanted to connect and let me know I got it. Everyone was in different places on Zoom. David was driving, George was in D.C., others were in Baltimore, so it was this interesting Zoom meeting. But I felt like I had this really good take on Hersl, and knowing that he was the one guy on the Gun Trace Task Force who, aside from his brutality, what separates him from some of the other police involved is he is actually from the city, right there in that area.

He is a product of the places where we were filming. That was important to me. This guy was Baltimore through and through. In doing my research on him, he was a huge Orioles fan, always wearing an Orioles shirt to work, going to games after work. You can actually hear him talking about it on the bodycam footage that I got to see. That felt like part of my job, to bring that authenticity to it, so that people in my hometown would see it and say, oh yeah, that’s a guy from Highlandtown.

Awards Daily: This isn’t a role with a lot of lines, except for episode two, but there’s a physical presence that you bring to every scene. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of you for Hersl, but your character is sort of the flip of Jon Bernthal’s Wayne Jenkins, in that both of you represent what went wrong, but you do it in a different way. There’s more of a blunt-force instrument quality in Hersl.

Josh Charles: Part of the reason why I didn’t reach out and talk to Daniel (Hersl), not that he would have necessarily talked to me anyway, was because I got so much from the bodycam footage and from talking to the people who knew him. And, you know, it’s not the Daniel Hersl story. He’s a character in it that’s very pivotal and important, but you almost hear more about him than see him. What was interesting to me, is that once I signed on, they wrote that scene between me and Wunmi Mosaku (who plays Civil Rights Attorney Nicole Steele) when she comes into a bar and I’m at the stool there in my own neighborhood, it’s such a great scene. What you always dread as an actor is having to carry exposition. Sometimes you have to do it, particularly in TV. But the really good writers are able to do it in a way that feels effortless. Sometimes it’s a slog – even for great writers – because you have to get the information out to the audience. What I thought was so incredible about how they were writing this character, and George and I spoke about this early on, when they were all arrested, Hersl was the only one who didn’t speak to the police. Now, it’s come out more recently that there were some proffer sessions, but at the time, that was not known. The other officers implicated talked right away, but he didn’t. He was one of only two guys who took it to trial. 

Given the narrative of the piece, that’s our way in. Hersl is the guy who doesn’t talk. But he’s referenced so much even when he’s not on screen. My concern was that we might fall into this one-note aspect, but writing that scene in the bar did everything I wanted. It didn’t make him some understandable, likable character, but what it did was it showed him in his own environment. A lot of people that I talked to about Daniel liked him – he had a weird charm about him. People thought he was funny. It’s what their writing does so well – they give everybody a voice. They gave Hersl a voice in that scene. It may not be a voice that myself or other people agree with watching his behavior, but I tell you what, you talk to a lot of police officers, and a lot of them will have a very similar point of view: show me a cop that doesn’t have any complaints, and I’ll show someone who isn’t doing their fucking job. [Laughs]. They were able to give me that element in an environment where he was among people he felt comfortable with. The reason I liked that scene so much is that because all the other expositional stuff was done without me being in the middle of it due to characters always talking about Hersl, that then, as an actor, when I got to play this scene, all the circumstances are done for you – I don’t have to do any of that. I just have to be in that room, in my spot, and a foreign entity is coming into my space to tell me how things should be done. I felt like I could just be in that moment and show, at least slightly, another side of him, and then the mask can go back on. I got very excited when I read that scene.

Awards Daily: The character reveal that I love about the scene is Hersl is eating chicken wings at the bar…

Josh Charles: Which, by the way, people have been commenting on my social media about how grotesque it was and was there a choice there? [Laughs]. I love that you picked up on this. In working with my acting coach, we were talking about how this is a man who takes his wings very seriously. He’s from an area where he’s not going to eat wings like, in his mind, he’s some sissy. He’s not using the goddamn wipes. The fact that it resonated and people were kind of freaked out by it, that it was such a violent eating of chicken wings [Laughs], I loved, because we were actually choosing to do that, it was important to me. 

Awards Daily: It’s even more than that, because when attorney Steele comes up to him, and instead of wiping his hands with a cloth, he licks his fingers clean and then shakes her hand. Even in the most basic of pleasantries, he’s making a vile sort of statement. [Laughs].

Josh Charles: It is, but we talked about it. I think in the scene…I have to go back and look, did I wipe them on my shirt too?

Awards Daily: No! You don’t wipe them! (Laughs)

Josh Charles: I don’t remember what the script specifically said, maybe it said I wipe them on my shirt, but there was no way I was touching the handi-wipes. That wasn’t going to happen. Those are fun things to play with. When you’re eating in a scene, it’s always tricky – what you’re going to have to do on camera and have to live with after [Laughs].

Awards Daily: I’ve always thought Vince Vaughn and Brad Pitt were good with food scenes. Now we know Josh Charles is good with food scenes too.

Josh Charles: Well, enough to gross people out. [Laughs]. The thing you asked earlier is interesting, that this isn’t something you might have thought of me for. That’s good. For me, having been in this industry since I was 15, I want to be able to surprise people. In the two movies where I’ve played a cop, I was the bad cop – SWAT and Four Brothers. So, it’s not like I haven’t done this. I’ve played violent characters before. As an actor, I know what I do, and as I’m growing, and want to push myself, you’re not always afforded the luxury of that. In an industry where you play a lawyer in a suit, that’s how people see you for a while. If you do a comedy, people will see you that way. They kind of see you as the last thing that you did. I wanted to be a part of this story and telling it, because I thought it was an incredibly cinematic story, and in the hands of such great writing, but it was also the opportunity to throw someone a curveball. Especially when you’ve been in this business as long as I have. “Against type” is something that people say a lot, and that’s fair and I get it, but to me, it’s also any chance you get as an actor to stretch and show range, and that you’re capable of many things is always important. In that way, I feel very happy about being a part of We Own This City.

Awards Daily: As soon as I saw you on screen, I thought, holy shit, that’s Josh Charles, and then I forgot about it and you were just Hersl.

Josh Charles: I appreciate that. It’s interesting. And maybe it’s because I felt so comfortable in that environment – in the Baltimore area – that I didn’t think about it at all. I had the normal feelings that you have as an actor where you’re always, can I do this? But it wasn’t that I hadn’t done it, it was that I was doing it in a more specific, detailed way that I know is going to have a larger audience, but that’s great. For me, I was excited about that. What I was most concerned about was nailing the way he speaks. That was very important to me, being a Baltimorean. I wanted to make sure I got the nuance right with that accent. That was critical to me. Listening to him in the bodycam footage, there was this contrast between the brutality of the character mixed with this goofy, kind of highish, weird Highlandtown voice – I wanted to nail that specifically. Not so much critically, but it was more important to me that my relatives and my friends in Baltimore were like, yeah, you got that. You did it. That was a big deal for me. I felt a lot of responsibility in that regard.

Awards Daily: When I talked to Jon Bernthal, he spoke about how much weight The Wire had in getting access to the police, and doing ride-alongs and so forth, I can imagine that getting to do this with David Simon and George Pelecanos was a huge part of wanting to do this show for you.

Josh Charles: If you’re from Baltimore…my joke with David Simon was that my first movie was with John Waters (Hairspray), and I hadn’t worked in Baltimore since then, so it took me god knows how many years to work with David and George…

Awards Daily: 33 years. [Laughs].

Josh Charles: Hopefully it doesn’t take me another 33 to work with Barry Levinson. If I work with Barry, then I’ve done all my Baltimore stuff. I’m coming after Barry next. That’s who I want to work with.

Awards Daily: There’s your Baltimore trilogy.

Josh Charles: Exactly.

Awards Daily: Considering that The Wire is seen as one of the greatest series ever, but also the most Baltimore series ever, did you have any trepidation with We Own This City being compared with that show, because of the David and George connection?

Josh Charles: I didn’t. First of all, because it’s a real story. We know the trajectory of the story. I think what David said, and he said it so specifically, this is a coda, if anything, to The Wire. When they finished writing The Wire, these guys (in We Own This City) weren’t cops then. This is the result of the years since of bad policy and what can happen. My trepidation was less that, and more, here I am in Baltimore working on a story that’s not so pro-Baltimore, you know? [Laughs]. But that’s okay, because it’s an important story and it needs to be told. It’s not a pleasant story of Baltimore. When we had the premiere here, it was a really beautiful moment – even though there’s more to Baltimore than this heartbreak – it started a whole conversation about how much more this city has to it. It’s a beautiful city. But it’s also a city that’s hurting and struggling, like a lot of cities, and has its own specific things that it’s dealing with, and it’s not getting any better. This story felt very vital right now. It would be one thing if things had really improved since then. Perhaps they have in some regards internally, but in terms of what we are seeing – scientific data – it doesn’t look like it’s improving at all.

Awards Daily: I think what the show points out so brilliantly is that the problems aren’t a “few bad apples.” It’s systemic. It’s the rush for stats. It’s this need for immediacy. Every cop is being judged by the statistics of how many arrests they’ve made, how many guns they’ve pulled off the street and put on the table – not that those things aren’t important, but it turns into a negative motivating factor. Doing that, hitting your numbers, doesn’t always mean doing good police work.

Josh Charles: The Gun Trace Task Force was created before what happened with Freddie Gray, but I do think the vacuum that was created after that certainly contributed to those guys even going further. It’s touched on in the show, at that time there was a pullback. And not just in Baltimore, but across the country. The reaction to people seeing abuse, and I think in that vacuum, you had cops that were being aggressive and doing what they thought they were supposed to be doing. They were getting pats on the back. At the same time, they were criminals. I think it existed before, but I think it was allowed to thrive even more in that vacuum created by most police pulling back, and not doing the level of policing needed because they were scared or angry about the Freddie Gray prosecutions of police. These guys were doing the opposite, They were “producing.”

Awards Daily: That’s an excellent point. Because you had many members of the police force who were doing as little as possible, in part because of fear of prosecution after Freddie Gray, it gave the Gun Trace Task Force an opening to be the creators of stats, and it also created this “look the other way” mentality while they were filling their flak jackets with cash from drug and gun busts. 

Josh Charles: I think that played a huge role in how that got worse and worse. 

Awards Daily. After speaking with Jon Bernthal about playing Wayne Jenkins, and now speaking with you about playing Daniel Hersl, I feel like the two of you played the yin and yang of the same problem. Jenkins was very much out there and loving every minute of it, while Hersl is quieter, but in his own way indicative of the overall issue with policing.

Josh Charles: I think the reality is you live a lot more with Wayne in the story – he’s the central person that you’re going through. You’re seeing a lot more of him and his arc. Whereas Hersl is more in and out. Hersl was very much a jokester and a talker – he had all of those things. You’re seeing pieces of it in the show, but you don’t see enough to fully embody him, and that’s okay. That wasn’t what was called for in telling this story. I do think he is the sort of poster child, what is emblematic, if you’re going to pick one person, as to what’s wrong with modern policing. He certainly embodied that. I think what you’re getting at is there’s a certain brashness about Wayne, and there is some of that to Hersl, it’s just different in the approach. 

Awards Daily: I think the heartbreaking aspect of this show is it makes you wonder if, in the time of Black Lives Matter and “Defund the police,” if there’s any way forward. That maybe the problems are so deeply rooted in the system, that without starting over entirely, that we are sort of stuck.

Josh Charles: I certainly hope that’s not the case, I hope we can find a way. We need to. We’re seeing so much accessibility – and I think it’s a good thing – being able to see things that we weren’t able to see before. It’s just much more in our consciousness, what’s happening. It makes me wonder, how long has that stuff been going one, we just didn’t see it. We didn’t have cell phones then – people weren’t taking pictures and video before. I also think there’s so many cops that we talk to…you’ve gotta dive into the shoes of these people. They don’t view themselves as the villain. That’s not helpful for you playing the part. In our research, we found so many good cops that are out there doing the right thing, that are in this for the right reasons. But it’s not simply about a few “bad apples,” to me it’s about recruitment and education – who you are bringing onto the force. Who are the people that should be weeding them out? The people that really have no business being in this job? 

Awards Daily: I sometimes wonder, much like with education, this is a job that you can get into, be a professional, but you never really get paid what your job is worth. Do we get what we pay for when it comes to the police?

Josh Charles: It’s definitely something I’ve heard quite a bit, and there’s validity to it. The counter is you’re not going into that profession to make a ton of money, you’re going to serve the greater good. It has lots of other things, like great benefits. I’m all for paying people more that are doing these essential jobs, that are there to protect us. Yeah, of course. It’s a tough job.

Awards Daily: The way David and George tell a story is absent of any spoon feeding. They trust the audience to stay in there and pay attention, and if you do, you are rewarded for that at the end, as in the case with We Own This City. I imagine you are immensely proud to be a part of this.

Josh Charles: I am. I’m very proud to be a part of it. And I agree with you, I think it’s challenging material, but I love that. I know some people have been frustrated by the time-jumping – where am I right now, what year is it? I think it forces you to lean a little more forward, pay attention, you’ve got to do a little bit of the work, but it will pay off. It all comes together really nicely. Yeah, I’m very proud to be a part of it. I think it’s really excellent TV.