Sonja Sohn convinces us that her characters know their jobs, and that doing them can hurt. We rate her most highly in The Wire; her directness is less effective when a script turns a conversation into a speech.
Fi1m perspective
In The Wire (2002), Sonja Sohn’s Kima Greggs can make a difficult professional decision understandable without stopping the conversation to explain it. Alongside Lance Reddick’s Cedric Daniels, she helps make the pressure of ambition and expedience felt in ordinary exchanges. We cared about Greggs even when we disagreed with her, because Sohn let us follow her reasoning without turning it into a speech. That is a substantial part of why we recommend the programme even to people who tend to avoid police dramas.
Sohn began as a slam poet before Marc Levin cast her in Slam (1998), which she also co-wrote. Her spoken-word background helps explain why that directness can feel so personal. Supporting film parts led to Greggs, and her later work has repeatedly placed her in law-enforcement and other professional settings. She has also moved into documentary directing with Baltimore Rising (2017) and The Slow Hustle (2021), working beyond the kinds of roles she is usually offered.
High Flying Bird (2019) shows where that directness can become a limitation. In Steven Soderbergh’s film, she plays Myra, representing the players’ association during an NBA lockout, with Tarell Alvin McCraney supplying the dense negotiating talk. We liked the quick exchanges and the sense that nobody is negotiating only about the subject being discussed. But some of Sohn’s speeches sound addressed to a room rather than to the person opposite her, and we become too aware of the point the speech is there to make. The writing bears some responsibility, but Sohn does not quite make those passages sound like conversation.
Casting her as Amanda Wagner in Will Trent (2023) continues the association with professional authority. There is nothing wrong with returning to what an actor does well, provided the writing gives her something beyond the job title. We would welcome more parts that let Sohn negotiate and reconsider, rather than simply establish who is in charge. Start with The Wire, even if another police drama is the last thing the evening appears to need.
Biography
Sonja Sohn is an American actress, filmmaker and activist. She began her career as a slam poet before co-writing and starring in the 1998 independent film Slam, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. She is best known for playing Detective Shakima 'Kima' Greggs in the HBO series The Wire (2002–2008).
Sohn has appeared in films including Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Shaft (2000), Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) and High Flying Bird (2019), and in television series such as Body of Proof, Star Trek: Discovery and Will Trent. She founded the Baltimore community programme ReWired for Change, which works with at-risk youth, and has directed documentaries including Baltimore Rising (2017).
