Braugher laughs!

Missing one of the great actors--comic and dramatic--of our era

Last year, I got to make Andre Braugher laugh.

I was speaking to Braugher about his classic, wildly underappreciated police series Homicide: Life on the Street (streaming justice for Homicide!). 

In my class on television drama at NYU, I kick off the semester with the Homicide episode “Three Men and Adena.” It’s a brilliant piece of acting by Braugher, an actor playing a detective whose job primarily consists of acting—bending and twisting himself into whatever form that will allow him to wheedle a confession out of people who do not want to admit their guilt.

At the close of our interview, I told Braugher that I particularly enjoyed showing this episode to my students, who primarily knew him from playing Captain Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and were pleasantly surprised to discover that he was capable of playing straight drama.  He burst into laughter, thoroughly amused to hear how he—one of the great dramatic actors of his era—was perceived by a younger audience as primarily a comic performer.

There were few actors more gifted than Andre Braugher, more fluid, more powerful, more able to deliver a line with unparalleled intensity.  Playing Captain Holt was like a jest after Homicide and its equally underappreciated follower Men of a Certain Age, an easy demonstration of Braugher’s range and his gifts.  Who knew that Andre Braugher could be so funny?  Braugher was greatly amused to hear about my students’ confusion, and let out a deep, throaty chuckle that felt instantly familiar.

“Tell your students hello from me,” he said. “I was looking for something different, with Men of a Certain Age and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and it’s been successful.  I needed a new adventure, and comedy represented new territory, new artistic territory, and it’s been a wonderful 14 years.  Dealing with new comic material.  So tell your students, you know, ‘baby, I’m back.’

Braugher waxed enthusiastic in the interview about the editing patterns of Homicide, comparing its handheld aesthetic and its jump-cut techniques to that of Jean-Luc Godard.  I couldn’t help but notice that he sounded just like Raymond Holt, only with an enthusiasm for the French New Wave instead of gardening and fine cuisine.

Braugher was back, and now he is gone, dead at the age of 61.  It feels criminal to know that we won’t see him on screen anymore, won’t get to see him surprise us again.