David Simon pulls in big names with new drama Show Me a Hero

The power of writer David Simon’s work has attracted a host of remarkable actors to star in his TV drama. The latest evidence of this is clear in the credits of Show Me a Hero, HBO’s six-episode miniseries based on a bitter 1980s battle over public housing in Yonkers, New York.

From left, Oscar Isaac, Angela Pietropinto, Josh Salatin, Jessica Denson, Michael Stahl-David and Carla Quevedo in Show Me a Hero. Paul Schiraldi / Courtesy HBO

The power of writer David Simon's work has attracted a host of remarkable actors to star in his TV dramas, which include The Wire and Treme.

The latest evidence of this is clear in the credits of Show Me a Hero, HBO's six-episode miniseries based on a bitter 1980s battle over public housing in Yonkers, New York, which will end its three-week run on Sunday in the United States (broadcast details for the Middle East have not been announced).

Even Simon seems amazed by the cast, which includes Oscar Isaac, Alfred Molina, Winona Ryder and Catherine Keener. All acclaimed actors – and a lot of talent for what sounds like, but is far from, a dramatised bureaucratic slog?

“It makes no sense. I’m coming with, like, eight hours on botany and seeing who I pull next time,” he jokes at a meeting of the Television Critics Association.

Hollywood writer and director Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) was also attracted to the miniseries, which is based on Lisa Belkin's 1999 non-fiction book of the same name that told how a federal court order to build low-income housing in white neighbourhoods divided the city's residents and wrecked the career of its young mayor.

Haggis, an Academy Award-­winning writer (for 2004's Crash, which was also honoured with the Oscar for Best Picture), said yes to Show Me a Hero before he saw a script, and for one reason.

“David Simon,” he says. “I heard he had a project available and I pitched myself for it.”

When producers asked which episode he wanted to direct, Haggis replied: “I want to do them all.”

This from a man who had previously only directed films based on his own scripts. And this despite the fact that the relatively modest budget and pace of television production required filming between six and 10 pages of script a day, compared with the relatively leisurely big-screen tally of two to three pages.

“It was very challenging to capture this because, as David likes to joke, his company is the PBS of HBO,” says Haggis. “You don’t get the same kind of budget as if you put a zombie in it, which is natural.” He is quick to add that HBO was “very good to us”.

The resulting drama, co-­written by Simon and William F Zorzi (who was also one of the writers for The Wire), is one of the most intelligent, gripping and provocative projects to grace any screen this year – a study of the clash between what America is and what it hopes to be, as seen through the eyes of lawmakers, activists and the residents caught in the middle of politics and social disruption.

“It’s a tale of very flawed individuals who are trying to do the right thing, from their perspective,” says Haggis.

These include white homeowners, who view themselves as protectors of their neighbourhoods and property values, which they see as being under assault from public housing that is to be placed throughout the city, not only in poorer areas.

The miniseries has a cinéma-­vérité feel, which Haggis says is important, given the true-life subject matter.

“I was being handed the truth in the script ... but I had to make it feel real,” he says. In crowd scenes, for example, the goal was for every frame to appear as “imperfect” as possible.

“I wanted to make you feel like you were part of it. There’s always someone or something between you and what you see,” says Haggis.

This approach creates a sense of urgency as well as realism, and that’s appropriate for an issue that remains pertinent. Although decades have passed since the Yonkers clash, the fight for affordable public housing continues in American cities, says Simon.

“It happened in Baltimore County [in Maryland] when they tried to put scattered site housing in my city,” he says, referring to plans to have low-income, public housing units scattered throughout middle-income residential neighbourhoods.

“We are not good at sharing in this country. We are not very good at it anymore. There was a moment in time where the idea of a societal, of a shared, America, was plausible.”