Emmy Award-winning actor Željko Ivanek has played dozens of parts on stage (“The Caine-Mutiny Court Martial,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs”), as well as big and small screen (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Madam Secretary, Damages). But this week, on Thursday, September 27, the Yale University graduate will appear as himself when he hosts the 35th anniversary of the nonprofit NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) at Center Stage.

While preparing to serve as the narrator for the event in which speakers share their stories, we caught up with the actor who lives in New York with his partner, Greg Pierce (introduced to each other by Greg’s uncle David Hyde Pierce). We talk about Homicide, typecasting, and why, in some ways, this is the actor’s hardest role yet.

Why does this particular cause speak to you and why did you agree to narrate the evening at NAMI?
Originally, I said no. That kind of thing—standing up in front of people as myself—gives me the hebbie jebbies. It scared me off initially, but the contact person was [board member] Mary O’Byrne and I went to college [at Yale] with Mary. I also have some affection for Baltimore having spent time working there on Homicide.

I’ve also had my own experiences with people in my extended family and have seen what it’s like to deal with mental-health issues. The idea of anyone or their family members having to struggle through without any resources, or just knowledge at the ready, is overwhelming. You can be at sea if you don’t have resources to draw on. It’s way too much to tackle yourself without any support or information—it was important for me to contribute.

I’m surprised to hear that someone who is the very definition of a working actor experiences stage fright.
I get very self-conscious going to parties and events where I just have to chitchat. What am I going to talk about? I’m always stunned by actors who can do that. A lot of actors do share my fear. It’s just a completely different thing when you have lines and a character and a context—that doesn’t phase me—but to just stand up there and give a speech suddenly you feel like all eyes are on you. . . . Someone said that I should just act like someone who is comfortable being the emcee and just play that character.

What have you learned from watching loved one’s suffer?
When things are good, you forget what pain actually is. When you’re not in a crisis, you get lulled back into your everyday life. Any brush with health issues and mortality and anything that can take away the things you take for granted, you want to hold closer to you. It makes even mundane things all the more precious.

How has seeing suffering so up close informed you as an actor?
I hadn’t thought of it specifically, but any encounter with human suffering is bound to elicit empathy, and empathy is at the core of understanding human behavior, and that is, in turn, essential to acting.

Now that you no longer come to Baltimore regularly to shoot Homicide, is there something you miss about the city?
I’ve always just loved walking around Baltimore. There’s so much history in the architecture and the streets and such a sense of place. It clearly trying to invent itself in some ways. It was to fun to see that start to happen. Of course, Fells Point was the center of my Baltimore universe, and is still what I think of most fondly. I’ll be curious to see how much it has changed.

You’ve had so much success as an actor. To what do you owe your success?
I’m not sure I know. I just came back from the 40th reunion of my drama class in London [at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art] and most of my classmates are not working in the business anymore and there were so many talented people. I started playing slightly smarmy men in suits or powerful men in suits. At some point you just fill a niche or a certain kind of category I fell into what’s useful and needed and I’ve managed to keep going.

I have also always appreciated working with people repeatedly and building on those connections. One of those people who got me started is Tom Fontana, who created Homicide. He became my mentor in terms of the business. He was working on St. Elsewhere and then created Homicide and cast me as a recurring character. That’s probably the first man in a suit I got to play. But the rest of my [success] has been a great mystery to me.

Your IMDb describes you as an actor who is “frequently cast as political or business middlemen of corrupt, shady natures who often end up stabbing somebody in the back.” Why do you think the casting directors believe these are the roles you should play?
A lot of times people see the last thing that you did. When I’ve been on the other side of the camera trying to cast a reading or help someone finance a movie, your mind works in the same way and you ask yourself, “Who do I know who has played that kind of part before?” If you’re lucky, you get to step out of that once in while, but it’s also incredibly gratifying to keep working and to belong to something. We are in our fifth season of Madam Secretary. I like the continuity and love going to work. Whenever that’s over, it will be a shock to go back out and get a call from my agent saying, “You have an appointment.”

Cal Ripken Jr., Michael Phelps, and Ray Lewis are arguably Baltimore’s most recognizable sports figures. They all have appeared in hundreds of commercials between them, but Lewis is taking his acting career to the next level. The former Ravens linebacker will be making a cameo in an upcoming film shot and based in Baltimore.

Potential was created by Maryland-based writer and director Jason Slawson and funded by local production company SNM Global Holdings. According to IMDb, it’s a dramatic comedy about life choices and “adulting” in a fast-paced society.

“Potential follows the lives of four thirty-somethings trying to jump-start their respective futures,” as it reads on IMDb. “Broke and struggling, they fight to make ends meet and gain forward momentum in their lives, all the while dealing with dead-end jobs, faltering relationships, and the successes of their friends.”

During a Q&A between the producer Grant Slawson and CEO of SNM Global Troy Lowman, the two discussed Lewis’ role in the upcoming film. Lowman says that Lewis showed interest in the production company and thought giving him a cameo was a great idea.

“He’s not just a Baltimore icon—he’s a national icon,” Lowman said. “I think it would give the movie some exposure it wouldn’t otherwise get. He’s also a pretty funny guy. I won’t spoil it for everybody, but I think it will be one of the highlights of the movie.”

Although Lewis has never been in a movie—we aren’t counting his 2014 cameo in Draft Day—and the producers thought including him would bring a wider demographic in to see the film. The fact that the movie is set in Baltimore didn’t hurt either. Lewis was in the city last week for the film’s casting call at Jimmy’s Seafood in Dundalk—which will also make a cameo.

There’s no word yet on when the film will be released or the character Lewis is playing, but pre-production is set to begin in August. And the jury is still out on whether or not the legendary linebacker will perform his signature squirrel dance.

“I’m really excited about the movie, especially the comedy side of it,” Lewis said in a January interview. “There’s this thing about me always being so tough, but there’s another side of me that’s just pure laughter. This is my first time behind the camera, but I can also say it won’t be my last.”

If power and persistence were to exist in the form of a woman, she would be DeWanda Wise, a Baltimore native and the star of Spike Lee’s new Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. Having grown up in Woodlawn, Wise plays the titular character Nola Darling in the new dramedy series based on the 1986 film of the same name. We recently talked to the actress about her journey full of bullseyes and do-overs, why she fell in love with the character of Nola, and the industry’s need to portray more people of color. 

You started out doing theater in high school. Was it in college that you decided that acting is what you wanted to do? 
Oh yeah, I don’t think I would have gone to college. Before I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be a therapist but I wanted to be a therapist but the more I learned about the industry, while taking AP psych at Atholton [High School], I was like, ‘Maybe not . . . this.’  I was still a kid and I was still very much like, ‘Black people don’t go to therapy,’ and those were the people I wanted to serve and that’s what it was at the moment. And then I discovered, or rather, Nathan Rosen forced me to discover acting and I was like, ‘Oh this is where it all goes!’

This year it’s like you shot out of a cannon! I know it didn’t just happen in a year, it’s been a process. In 2016-2017, you did Underground, Shots Fired, and She’s Gotta Have It. How does that process work?
While I was doing Shots Fired, I taped for Underground and went to the call back in Savannah, Georgia and that was from August literally through filming She’s Gotta Have It. I wasn’t done filming Underground yet when I started filming She’s Gotta Have It in mid-October and finished early February 2017. So I was filming all of 2016.

Were you in New York for most of this?
I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for Shots Fired and then Alano and I went Savannah, Georgia for Underground and then I was in Brooklyn for She’s Gotta Have It. That was all of 2016 and all of them had been like seeds. Shots Fired was Gina Prince-Bythewood, Reggie “Rock” Bythewood, and the first time I had ever encountered either of them was in 2007 at my audition for Notorious. The second thing I was up for he [Reggie Rock] had a pilot called Gun Hill at BET and I screen tested for that and then I went in for a small role in Beyond the Lights. So this was my fourth time going in for anything with them. I went in for three roles—Sanaa, Ashitey, and Shameeka.

In your story, I hear a lot of persistence. I hear you saying that you’ve got to just keep going and keep trying.
You do and I feel like there are a lot of artists who are uncomfortable with the business component of it because it’s just like, ‘Listen I just want to create my art.’ My mom reminds me that I was such a theatre snob and that I was like, ‘I want to only do theater’ when I was in school which was so dumb. Unless you are on Broadway every week you are not making money in American theater. You can’t support yourself. 

But that’s not the point. The point is she reminds me that really what I was experiencing was that I didn’t believe that the work existed in film and TV that was compatible with what I wanted to do or what felt like what I would do.  It all goes back to say that having an understanding of the business of how casting works is important and that it’s really not personal. It wasn’t a blow to my spirit or psyche and I feel like that kept me in it more than anything. Then it became a matter of being like, ‘Oh let me find my tribe. Let me find people whose work is compatible with what can I contribute.’

How do you prepare for a role?
Physically, I try to workout in a way that’s organic to the characters I’m playing. For Nola, that meant spin class and yoga because she’s always riding her bike and goes to dance class with her friends. In terms of research, I was also an Urban Studies major, so I was fortunately very familiar with the major themes of the show. Outside of that, I do my actor work and trust the collaborators around me.

You are very transparent on social media about what your needs are as an artist, how important is it to have the proper guidance in your industry.
Everyone before the show came out were like, ‘Are you ready? Are you ready?’ and what’s beautiful about stepping into the skin of Nola, as a ‘Type A’ human being, is it opened my process up and it opened me up to being less controlling, to being more open in a way to what things are and not being presumptuous about what it was going to be. There have been a ton of things in my life that have been like that. That have been like, ‘Maybe don’t walk into this with preconceived notions.’ Maybe don’t walk into it like, ‘This is who I am’ because who I am is constantly evolving. 

So all that is to say there is no real preparation for someone who comes from a for real place and comes from a working-class background for what Hollywood is. In terms of my transition to where I am now, I have had the grace and the fortune to see my husband become a principal actor on a show and I have had close friends that have ‘blown up’ before my eyes. There is a lot of peer engagement, there are a lot of people who this is happening to at the same time, we call it ‘hatching.”

I can bounce ideas back and forth with them, but when it comes to that intergenerational conversation, people who have already moved through this space, it is presumed that they don’t have the time [to mentor]. I am trying to make sure that I am transparent about younger actors and younger activists knowing that I am making the space and the room for them and also not being afraid to reach up and be like, ‘Is anyone up there making the space and the room?’ When things come up it would be nice to have someone who [already] moved through it to help.

What motivates you and your husband, Alano, to do the independent film work that you do? What informs that work?
It speaks to working with Gina, she has an indie film background. It speaks to Spike and I being kindreds—he is still even at 60 still so inherently indie-minded. My first project, I was still in college, was an indie called Spinning In A Butter and it was about the undercurrent of race relations on a predominantly white campus. I think that in my bone and marrow and by the will of God, the stories that I have wanted to tell have always been through an independent lens. 

In the very beginning, I was hit on multiple fronts with challenges in my career path. We had the writer’s strike, the recession, there were a number of things that forced me even further into an independent space. If I wanted the work to exist, it wasn’t paid. I have a ton of short films that were just for the love of story, for the love of art. In addition to any formal theater you see on my resume, I was a part of several small theater companies in and around New York. So it has always been an aspect of my career and it always will be. 

I am literally filming an indie right now. A director I know was like, ‘What are you doing in December?’ and I was like, ‘We makin’ a movie?’ So doing indie film came from a need, a hole in the industry of stories of color, underrepresented marginalized communities, people we just do not see. My need to create in an independent space has always come from the recognition of something that is lacking.

There is so much going on with the #MeToo movement and women’s empowerment. She’s Gotta Have It couldn’t have come out at a better time.
What I was drawn to in Nola is seeing a woman in process. I do think it is very easy to see her and have strong feelings about how messy and not graceful she is in the midst of that process, but I think throughout it all what struck me and what continues to encourage me is knowing that it is okay for us to be in process. These narratives about us saving the world or being strong and resilient and beautiful women we are, while that is very important and it’s in our DNA, it’s also okay for us to be fragile and vulnerable. 

Many of the women that we look up to, the Michelle Obamas, the Maxine Waters, the Oprahs were all at once and still are, even though we don’t see it behind the scenes, ‘in process.’ We shouldn’t get so caught up in the whirlwind of trying to ‘make it’ that you don’t take up the space to be. 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Creatively, I would love to be producing more in 10 years and be providing opportunities for other artists. I anticipate a great deal of public service and philanthropy. And still madly in love with Alano. 

How familiar were you with Ocean City before you were cast as Rodney?

I was really familiar from my youth. I was born in Columbus, OH, and my family used to vacation there. Then, after my parents’ divorce, my dad moved to the Eastern Shore, and I lived with him from the time I was 9 or 10 until I was 11 or 12.

What do you think separated you from the pack during casting?

I grew up on the ocean. It’s really been my calling. So once I went in there, I just rocked casting. I have a lot of energy. It kinda radiates out of my aura, and I felt that they were, like, beach people—more in tune with Mother Earth, you know?

Do you have any actual life guarding experience?

I did some minor pool life guarding when I was in college but it wasn’t really, like, ocean patrol.

Did you actually film in Ocean City?

Yes, but we were on a very tight time schedule so they could only keep me out there for a day or two. But the commercials were so funny and over the top, it was just a real pleasure.

What are some of your favorite things to do in OC?

It’s always Thrasher’s fries. I’m always trying to be healthy—I’m primarily a vegan now—but I really like Thrasher’s fries. And the sunsets are always the most beautiful.

Do you ever get recognized?

Yeah, I love it! My favorite time was when I was walking down the street, and I had just taken off my shirt. I play tennis, and a little child was watching me playing, and, as I’m walking away, this kid goes, ‘Are you him?!’ It took me a second, because I had just played two hours of tennis but I was like, ‘Dying from boredom? Not on my watch!’ [Rodney’s catchphrase]. And he was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you are!’ He just ran back to his parents. It was so funny.

What is today’s Ocean City like compared to the Ocean City you remember?

It’s amazing how the place improved so much in just a decade. I’m just really proud that if you go to OC you don’t feel like its some old beach town, yet you still get the fact that there’s a large amount of history there.

What is your personal favorite summer vacation memory?

I can remember a time when I was seven years old, and I was sitting on the Ocean City beach, and I was watching the sunrise. I was just so young, and I knew nothing of anything in the world besides the purity of the waters, the sun, the sand, and the love of my parents. I would play in the sand and collect these little shells. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with all these shells, but I used to want to get them before the other kids could. I’d always run out there first thing in the morning and get as many shells as I could. I’d always have to carry them all the way back to my mom. I’d be like, “Look!” It’s kinda funny.

So, you’re not really a lifeguard, but are you a strong swimmer?

Oh my god, yes. I’ll tell you how strong I am: I always wished there was a little island I could swim to and have my own little island, you know? So I looked back through history and learned that there are man-made islands. Well, I made an island, literally the size of a living room, 15×15, and it sat in the water like a lily pad. I made this down in Wilmington, NC, and my goal was basically to make it like a barge and haul it up and down the coast and put, like, a cool advertisement on it from commercial property. Well, one day, the island broke during a big storm and I just had a premonition that something was in trouble, I get in the car in the middle of a storm and drive down there to find my island getting washed off in the ocean and instead of saying goodbye to it I jumped in, tied a rope to my waist, and swam against the current with a barge attached to me. Even the Coast Guard pulled up beside me and said, “We’ve never seen anything like that!”

Wow, that’s dangerous, I’m surprised you survived.

I mean worst-case scenario, I let go of the cord, but I have strong survival instincts.