I've not really watched The Wire.. Neither have I really thought about how far the writers went to make it as authentic as possible either until I read this..

[Objective]

The former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke, an advocate of drug decriminalization, has a small role as the city’s health commissioner; the character works with a police commander who creates an experimental zone, which the street kids call Hamsterdam, where drug users won’t be arrested. The former Republican governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich shows up as a state trooper on the governor’s detail in a scene where the Democratic mayor of Baltimore comes to Annapolis to ask for a bailout. People whom Simon reported on appear in cameos as city clerks, drug counsellors, corner boys, hired muscle. “These jokes don’t impair anyone else’s viewing,” Simon explained. “But when Kurt Schmoke advocates for drug decriminalization as the city health commissioner, there’s an extra kick for the locals. But here’s the other thing: these are faces you don’t see on television, the faces and voices of the real city.”

Simon is an authenticity freak. He said, “I’m the kind of person who, when I’m writing, cares above all about whether the people I’m writing about will recognize themselves. I’m not thinking about the general reader. My greatest fear is that the people in the world I’m writing about will read it and say, ‘Nah, there’s nothing there.’ ”

And this;

Filming on city streets in marginal neighborhoods carries its peculiar risks and rewards. On one occasion, a car involved in a high-speed chase smashed into one of the actors’ cars, and everybody had to dive out of the way. Another time, a man got shot yards away, staggered onto the set trailing blood, and was treated by the show’s medic. Once, a man pressed a package of heroin into the hands of Andre Royo, the actor who plays the sympathetic junkie and police informant Bubbles, saying, “Man, you need a fix more than I do.” Royo refers to that moment as his “street Oscar.”

Fuck, I know I'm waaaaaaaaay late on this shit, but I think I've really missed out on something tbh. This info is crazy af.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...?currentPage=2