'90210' gets Wilds as ex-'Wire' star joins new cast

Best known to television audiences as Baltimore street criminal Michael Lee from the critically acclaimed HBO series “The Wire,” young actor Tristan Wilds is showing a very different side in his new role on “90210.” (Photo courtesy of the CW)

Sarah Rodman

When it comes to a change of scenery, no actor on television has Tristan Wilds beat this fall.

The young New Yorker will be making the transition from the gritty drama of the critically acclaimed HBO series “The Wire” to the West Coast glitz and soap opera antics of “90210,” the CW spin-off of Fox’s 1990s hit “Beverly Hills 90210.”

The contrasts are sharp. On “The Wire,” Wilds played brooding, stone-cold Baltimore street criminal Michael Lee, who kept his own counsel in a world of poverty and urban blight. He was surrounded by many other actors of color portraying some of the most realistic stories ever seen on television.

Beginning with the Sept. 2 premiere of “90210,” Wilds will portray Dixon Mills, an outgoing, funny, basketball player who is the adopted son of the all-white Wilson family. The Wilsons have moved from Kansas to Beverly Hills where they live in an opulent mansion. Dixon attends a mostly white school with his sister, Annie.

“I wanted to show that I wasn’t just a street kid from Baltimore’s corners,” said Wilds, a native of Staten Island, N.Y., during a recent interview in Los Angeles. “I wanted to show that I have a broader range than that. It’s fun because in a sense I can put more of myself inside the character. I can be more fun, I can laugh more, I can smile more, I can joke around with my friends. I can be the ladies man.”

Plus, the 19-year-old added with a laugh, “I don’t have to shoot anybody in the head.”

“90210” executive producers Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs said they were huge fans of “The Wire” and of Wilds’ turn as Michael.

“From day one, we pursued him,” said Judah. “When he did his audition in New York, I called him and talked him through it a bit, and we listened on the phone while he did it. And then we gave him some notes and he blew it out. And then when he got cast, I actually drove him to the cast shoot.”

On the entire drive, Judah joked, he peppered Wilds with questions and showered him with praise until Wilds must’ve thought he was crazy.

Wilds was used to that reaction, however. While “The Wire” was not a huge commercial success in terms of ratings, those who did watch were devoted. Some, however, couldn’t always separate character from actor, leading to some awkward situations with fans caught between eagerness to compliment him and fear of his character.

“People still come up to me,” he said. “I’ve gotten so many people who say, ‘I loved you so much on “The Wire,”’ and [then] scoot over.”

Although thousands of miles and piles of money separate his “Wire” and “90210” characters, when it comes to the core of who they are, the distance isn’t so large, according to Wilds.

“When Dixon was young, he was jumping from group home to group home all over and he landed in Kansas,” Wilds explained. “And in Kansas he got into a little trouble to where the group home was going to send him to another group home that was like a juvenile detention center, so the Wilsons came in and saved him and adopted him.

“It’s different from ‘The Wire,’ but you get to feel a sense of Michael inside of Dixon. They both went through some bad things when they were kids, but Dixon got saved at a time when Michael needed to be saved.”

The makeup of his new TV family is a positive sign to Wilds, who, along with Judah and Sachs, said that race will not be a major issue on the show.

“To see where we come from and the past that we had to now even in Beverly Hills we’re colorblind, it feels like we’re making progression,” said Wilds.

The young actor is certainly making progress. In addition to “90210,” Wilds will appear in the upcoming adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s acclaimed novel “The Secret Life of Bees,” opposite Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys.

“I just started working when I was 15, so to get on ‘The Wire’ when I turned 16 was a big thing for me,” he said. “And then to have this planted on me, the only thing I could do is thank God.”

Sarah Rodman is a staff music critic for the Boston Globe.