James McDaniel

In NYPD Blue (1993), James McDaniel’s Arthur Fancy can hold our attention through an ordinary disagreement between colleagues. Alongside David Caruso’s John Kelly, he helps make the precinct feel like a place where people have worked together before the scene began. We took pleasure in those exchanges because the actors paid attention to one another, even when the police plotting offered little surprise. The dialogue has an easy familiarity, and McDaniel helps sustain it without making every exchange an occasion to announce who Fancy is.

In Malcolm X (1992), he plays Brother Earl for Spike Lee, in a film carried by Denzel Washington’s searching performance. We recommend that thoughtful, occasionally overcareful drama for its acting, though its solemnity can make for a long evening. Television gave McDaniel the more sustained opportunity: after guest roles on Steven Bochco’s programmes, he played Fancy for eight seasons, from 1993 to 2001. That length of service suits an actor whose contribution depends so much on how colleagues respond to each other.

The frustration with Fancy is how little the programme sometimes gives McDaniel to do. He makes the workplace convincing, but we would have liked more occasions for him to take the lead within it. He did have a leading role as Kenny Williams in the television film Edge of America (2004). By Detroit 1-8-7 (2010), he was back in police work as Sgt Jesse Longford. Police and military officers recur in his parts; the appeal of that grounded authority is clear, though the casting can begin to look unimaginative.

McDaniel also directed one episode each of NYPD Blue and C-16: FBI, although his acting gives us the stronger reason to follow him. A disagreement involving Fancy can remain worth following without the writers having to complicate the investigation around it. Start with NYPD Blue for McDaniel, with the caveat that the police work is less interesting than the people doing it.