Tribute: Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Captain Holt, Andre Braugher was an actor’s actor

In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Andre Braugher played Raymond Holt - stern precinct captain, loving husband to Kevin Cozner (not that one), and doting father to Cheddar, a cute Welsh Corgi. (Screen grab/YouTube/Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Andre Braugher was a two-time Emmy winner with 11 nominations in a four-decade-long career. He was best known for his cop roles in Homicide: Life on the Street, one of the finest police dramas, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, one of the silliest cop comedies.

Television’s consummate man of authority, Andre Braugher died from lung cancer earlier this week. Glowing tributes have been pouring in from his castmates and co-workers. Audiences today recognise him as Captain Raymond Holt from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but 61-year-old Braugher’s career was in its fourth decade with over 100 film and TV credits, not counting his work in theatre.

I was 14 years old when I first saw Andre Braugher’s Detective Frank Pembleton interrogate a suspect in Homicide: Life on the Street. Until then, my exposure to TV lawmen was largely '80s era shows like T. J. Hooker and Miami Vice, which was slightly more grown up but still largely about style. But in 1993, between Homicide’s Frank Pembleton and Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue, I was introduced to the concept of adult television - where actions had consequences, and where our protagonists were less heroes and more flawed human beings.

Braugher was 30 years old when Homicide: Life on the Streets premiered. He had had some success, with a breakthrough role in Ed Zwick’s Glory (1989) about an African-American regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War. However, it was Homicide that made him a household name, and landed him the first of two Emmy awards.

Braugher was commanding on screen, imbuing his performances with a sense of dignity and righteousness. His time on the stage served him well, and you could always see that training in each of his performances - in the way he moved, and in the way he delivered his dialogue. In Homicide, Pemberton was considered most effective in “The Box”, which was how the cops referred to the interrogation room. Pemberton’s silver-tongued skills could get even the most hardened criminal to confess. In one particularly devastating episode, Pemberton convinces an innocent man to confess, even though they both know he didn’t commit the crime, just to prove a point to his boss. This wasn’t how the character was conceived, but Braugher’s performance and his oratory skills showed the writers that he could deliver dialogue that lesser actors simply could not, and they began to write to his strengths.

Unfortunately, Homicide is unavailable for streaming anywhere in the world due to complicated rights issues. But do yourself a favour and look up YouTube clips of Braugher in Homicide. The show was a masterclass in acting, mainly due to Braugher. Even though he wasn’t a known name when the show began, he quickly became the star of the show and the reason people tuned in every week for the six seasons that he was on it.

Braugher supplemented his TV career with strong supporting roles in movies like Primal Fear (1996), and City of Angels (1998), among others, always bringing gravitas and dignity to roles that would be forgettable in another actor’s hands. It’s a pity that he never found that one feature role that could really showcase his talent.

In the late 2000s he saw himself getting pigeonholed in his dramatic roles and pivoted to the funny side with TNT’s short-lived dramedy Men of a Certain Age. Pitted against comedy stalwarts like Ray Romano, who also created the show, Braugher somehow managed to become the funniest actor on the show. It’s very common for comedians to surprise audiences with a dramatic turn. Take for instance, Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, or more recently, Bob Odenkirk in Better Call Saul. But it rarely happens the other way around. Braugher had already conquered the drama arena, but now he had gotten a taste for comedy.

In 2012, Mike Schur and Dan Goor were in the process of casting Brooklyn Nine-Nine, their follow-up to the seminal Parks and Recreation. Set in a police precinct, they needed a straight man after populating the show with comedy ringers like Andy Samberg, Chelsea Peretti, and Joe Lo Truglio. They landed on Andre Braugher to play Raymond Holt - stern precinct captain, loving husband to Kevin Cozner (not that one), and doting father to Cheddar, a cute Welsh Corgi.

Braugher was able to move from the heaviest of heavyweight roles on Homicide to the silliest of silly jokes. The writers took a lot of pleasure in making him say ridiculous things, and he took even more pleasure in playing up the simplest of dialogue like referring to a marshmallow as a ‘marshed mallow’. The Nine-Nine even did a tribute to Pemberton called “The Box”, with Holt and Samberg’s Peralta in a three-hander with Sterling K. Brown as a dentist accused of murder.

With Braugher, you never knew if you were getting the expressionless robot or the excitable winner of the second Halloween Heist. Either way, it would be the funniest thing you saw that week.

It’s fitting that Braugher spent eight seasons not just as a stern captain, but as an unexpected father figure to more than one detective on the squad. Amidst the hilarity and downright nonsense that happened in the bullpen of the Nine-Nine, Braugher always had incredible grace and dignity.

Godspeed, Velvet Thunder.