Kathryn Erbe (Shirley Bellinger): I didn’t appreciate the show as much when I was on it as I do now. I thought that was a cool way to present a show that also had inmate rape and all that other brutal stuff. Harold Perrineau was the Greek chorus, the grand observer of these silly games that humankind plays. Simmons (Vern Schillinger): Tom Fontana is equal parts genius and mentor and pater familia-and you know, just a great guy.Ĭhristopher Meloni (Chris Keller): It was brutality combined with poetry. Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher): When Method Man first met Tom, he was like “ You’re the one who writes this stuff? A forty-year-old Italian guy from Buffalo?” Tom is my best friend in the world. But if you talk to any writer worth his grain of salt, whether it’s Vince Gilligan or David Simon, any of these guys, they’ll say it all started with Tom. Tom was approaching issues without kid gloves on 20 years ago, and that’s why I think Oz didn’t really find its footing initially.ĭon’t get me wrong, there were amazing writers on television before Tom and after Tom-I won’t lie about that.
Tom Fontana: We were really in uncharted territory, because HBO had never done a drama series before.ĭean Winters (Ryan O'Reily): Who watches HBO in 1997 at 11:00pm? Nobody. Several key cast members join creator Tom Fontana to reflect on the show’s enduring impact. Without it, there would be no Sopranos, no Breaking Bad, no Walking Dead, no Game of Thrones. An HBO ensemble drama set inside the Oswald correctional facility, redefined what you could do on non-network television-pretty much anything, it turned out-while fearlessly probing the unexplored tensions in American life. Two decades on, it’s clear that the 1997 premiere of Oz was the Big Bang of Great TV. A third is sprayed with lighter fluid and set aflame. Another is euthanized in bed with a hand over his nose and mouth.