‘Justified: City Primeval’ Star Victor Williams Discusses His Range, Catching the Acting Bug

You probably know Victor Williams from his nine-year stint on The King of Queens, but that stretch is just a small part of his career.

Unlike a lot of actors, Williams is impossible to pin down. Take his most recent role, as a tough Detroit cop in this past summer’s Justified: City Primeval, which he calls, “my best TV experience ever.”

It’s tough to steal scenes from star Timothy Olyphant, yet whenever Williams shows up on the screen, it’s hard to take your eyes off him. He spoke to us from his home in New York.

How did you become an actor in the first place?

If you talk to my mother, she will say that I’ve always had a thing since I was six years old when she put me in an urban theater camp at Kingsborough Community College here in Brooklyn. I may remember the camp, but that was a one-time thing. Then I wound up on stage in The Wizard of Oz in seventh grade.

Who did you play?

I was the Wizard. Looking back, I probably did have a passion for it, because I auditioned for the Cowardly Lion, didn’t get it and I was thoroughly upset. So, they gave me the Wizard. Then a girl in my high school senior year convinced me to take a theater class.

It’s always a girl that gets us involved, isn’t it?

[Laughs] Crystal Evans. She was a high school drama person. Loved theater. She was like, “Take this class,” and I said, “Okay.” Then I stumbled into a theater class my sophomore year in college and I got hooked. I would say it was in college, but my mother claims it was when I was in that camp at six years old.

So when you got out of college, did you jump right into it? Did you decide to pursue it right off the bat?

No, actually. I don’t say this with pride, but the truth of the matter is that I’m mostly calculated and conservative in my choices.

By the time my senior year came around, I knew I wanted to become an actor, but I also felt strongly that I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t brave enough to graduate college and go to New York and go for it. I decided that I should go to graduate school. I got accepted to a fair number of good programs, which was a good indicator, I guess, in hindsight, but I ended up going to the graduate program at NYU.

I’m always curious about MFA programs. Do they swing doors open for you? Or do people look down their nose at you?

I think it’s a bit of both. I’m very adamant with young actors that that is a way to go, but not the only way. That said, if you can get into a good program, the reward is, the graduate program at NYU was highly regarded and highly respected. As a result, you get the opportunity to do a showcase in front of a house full of managers and agents. If you’re able to get with a good agent or a good manager, it improves your opportunities to be seen. That’s what happened to me.

So are you one of those people who never really ever had a job besides acting?

Yeah, I’ve been very fortunate to have worked steadily for the last nearly 30 years. That’s the thing I’ve always taken pride in is the fact that I’ve been able to work consistently. I don’t take that for granted. I appreciate it and value it every day.

Photo Credit: Chuck Hodes/Courtesy of FX Networks.

One of the interesting things about your career is that you swing back easily from comedy to drama and both good guys and bad guys. What has allowed you to be so versatile?

What’s great about the good theater programs is they don’t typecast you. They force you to play parts that you may never play in the business. Restoration plays, Shakespeare, dark comedies, Beckett, Chekhov, August Wilson and lots of improv classes, but also doing the melodramatic stuff as well. That laid the foundation for me to have a wide range of tools to work with as I left school.

The things I leaned into coming out of college were more dramatic pieces and dramatic work. I thought that that was going to be my calling card.

And yet, the thing you’re probably best known for is a comedy.

My first big break was on a sitcom. My friends who knew me said I’m not funny in that way. No one thought I would be in that world. [Laughs] But the opportunity came and unbeknownst to me, I could be funny. It’s what I’m best known for and I appreciate it. Coming out of that, I thought, “Okay, well, that’s my thing.” All of a sudden, dramatic stuff comes.

Would you say working on The King of Queens helped you with your dramatic work, too?

That’s what I’m saying. As you hone your skills, you have to be not just flexible, you have to be exposed to as many different genres and styles as possible. Not just to expand your resume or your portfolio, but really to bring all of those experiences to whatever opportunities come.

You take a show like Justified. One of the reasons why the show is so great is because it’s a dramatic, dark piece, but it’s also really funny. I don’t know if I could have booked a show like that if I hadn’t had a certain sense of comedy that I learned from working on King of Queens.

You referred before to talking to young actors. Do you pass along your own experience and versatility, the desire to take on parts simply because you’ve never done them before and suggest that might work for their career as well?

That’s probably the only thing that I’m hardcore about when I do have the opportunity to speak to younger actors. It’s this idea of being exposed to as many opportunities and experiences as possible, stepping out of your comfort zone, doing things that make sense and also things that don’t seem to because there is no clear blueprint.

My thing is, just speak to as many people as you can and listen to what their experiences are. Whatever makes sense to you now, use it. Whatever doesn’t make sense, get rid of it. Anything else that you’re not so sure about, hip pocket it, because it might be useful 10 years from now. You are your own artist. You’re your own creator. Get the information and decide what works for you.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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