Actor in 'John Wick' franchise has died at age 60...

Lance Solomon Reddick

(June 7, 1962 – March 17, 2023)
Actor who starred in The Wire and John Wick series has died

Lance Solomon Reddick was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Dorothy Gee and Solomon Reddick. He attended Friends School of Baltimore. As a teenager, he studied music at the Peabody Preparatory Institute and a summer program teaching music theory and composition at the Walden School. Reddick studied classical music composition at University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music, earning a Bachelor of Music degree. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts in the 1980s. Reddick attended the Yale School of Drama in the early 1990s, receiving a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1994.

Reddick was cast as Cedric Daniels in the HBO series The Wire, having auditioned also for the roles of Bubbles and Bunk Moreland. He joined ABC's series Lost in 2008, where he played Matthew Abaddon, an employee of Charles Widmore, in multiple episodes. He was the third of five actors from the HBO series Oz to star in the drama. The Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were interested in Reddick for the part of Mr. Eko, but he was busy filming The Wire.

Reddick released his debut album Contemplations & Remembrances in 2007, and in early 2008, he was cast in a key role in the pilot of Fringe in which his fellow Oz actor, Kirk Acevedo, also had a regular role. Reddick played Phillip Broyles, the head of an FBI department investigating paranormal activities. Reddick described this character as "a real hard-ass, but he's also one of the good guys." Like Lost, Fringe was co-created and produced by J. J. Abrams. There was some doubt about whether Reddick could appear in both Lost and Fringe in the 2008–2009 television season. However, Abrams stated that, even though Reddick was a series regular on Fringe, he would do episodes of Lost whenever required. Reddick appeared in the 2013 thriller White House Down. He starred in the YouTube web series DR0NE, where he was also credited as a co-producer.

In 2014, Reddick appeared as Charon in the action-thriller film John Wick, a role he has reprised in its two sequels. In July 2021, it was confirmed that Reddick would reprise his role in John Wick: Chapter 4. He voiced the character Commander Zavala in the 2014 and 2017 video games Destiny and Destiny 2, respectively.

Also in 2014, he started portraying Chief Irvin Irving in the Amazon Prime series Bosch. Comparing his three large roles as police commanders, Reddick said that Daniels, his character from The Wire, is "a cop at heart", while Broyles, his Fringe character, is "a soldier", and Irving "is the quintessential politician".

Reddick was a spokesman in television commercials for Cree LED Bulbs.

In 2016, Reddick was cast in the post-apocalyptic horror film The Domestics. The film was released on June 28, 2018. Reddick later starred in the 2018 horror thriller film Monster Party. He also voiced the character Sylens in the 2017 video game Horizon Zero Dawn and reprised his role in the sequel Horizon Forbidden West. In 2021, Reddick appeared in the film Godzilla vs. Kong. In 2022, Reddick portrayed Albert Wesker in the live action Resident Evil Netflix series, which was cancelled after one season.

He will appear posthumously as the Greek god Zeus in the upcoming series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Disney+ adaption of the book series of the same name.

Reddick died from natural causes aged 60 on March 17, 2023, at his home in Los Angeles. Tributes were paid by colleagues and friends, including Reddick's Wire co-stars Wendell Pierce and Isiah Whitlock Jr., The Wire creator David Simon, and his John Wick co-stars Keanu Reeves and Ian McShane. Players of the games Destiny and Destiny 2 visited Reddick's character, Commander Zavala, saluting him or sitting in silence side by side.