joe.friedrich

Tony-nominated actor Amy Ryan's first love may be the theater, but she's reached a bigger audience — and gained wider acclaim, including a richly deserved Oscar nomination — for her role as the grieving mother of a child who's been kidnapped in the 2007 film Gone Baby Gone. Among numerous TV roles, she's also impressed as The Wire's "Beadie" Russell, an iron-willed Port of Baltimore police officer who was the woman to finally put a leash on notorious tomcat Jimmy McNulty — until the current season. We caught up with Ryan on the eve of the DVD release of Gone Baby Gone, which is slated for today. TVGuide.com: You've already won a number of prestigious critics' awards for Gone Baby Gone. How has the Oscar nomination changed your life?Amy Ry

Call it karma, coincidence or a casting coup, but as Omar, The Wire's stickup artist extraordinaire, Michael Kenneth Williams steals every scene he's in. We got our first glimpse this year of the gay, gun-toting gangster in his island exile last week, but tonight (9 pm/ET, HBO) he's back in Baltimore — and looking for revenge. TV Guide: Omar may be the most interesting TV villain since Deadwood's Al Swearengen. Michael Kenneth Williams: I still don't fully understand him. I think I can identify with maybe five percent of Omar, and the rest I did a whole lot of praying, "I hope they like it!" [Laughs] I was a little concerned with the backlash, because of his sexual [orientation], and the fact that he's not driving fancy cars and using fancy drugs. But Omar has resonated in a way that

If there's a controversy swirling on Big Love (9 pm/ET, HBO), you can bet that Nicki Grant, polygamist Bill Henrickson's second wife, is nearby. Deliciously played by Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny (1999's Boys Don't Cry), she's uptight, manipulative and often nasty, but can deftly parry any and all accusations of impropriety with a casual "Who, me?" innocence. TV Guide: After starring in controversial films, is playing a polygamist tame?Chloë Sevigny: I know my films are labeled that, but I don't take them as such. I thought this show was very much in keeping with my work in films, as far as being outside the norm. [Nicki] is the one people love to hate, but I also [hear], "You're the reason I tune in, because you're always doing something crazy."

HBO's Big Love went out with a big bang last season, when First Wife Barb was unceremoniously exposed as a polygamist at Utah's Mother of the Year ceremony. As the second season begins (tonight at 9 pm/ET), we asked Jeanne Tripplehorn about Barb now coming unglued. TV Guide: Is this the beginning of the end for the Henricksons? Tripplehorn: No, but everybody's sort of in disarray. The other wives are really concerned about Barb. She knows she put her family in jeopardy out of vanity, and she's paying for it. The family sort of blows apart for a little bit. TV Guide: The show's premise is decidedly out of the mainstream, not to mention illegal. Yet these characters earn our sympathy. Tripplehorn: It's [executive producers] Mark [V. Olsen