Andre Royo moves beyond Bubbles and 'The Wire' at Maryland Film Festival

All that's great for an actor looking to make his mark, but maybe not so great for an actor looking to make a career. Which is one reason Royo's glad to be back in Baltimore this weekend not as Bubbles, perhaps the most memorable character in a groundbreaking, set-in-Baltimore TV series, but as the star of Sunday's closing-night movie for the 2016 Maryland Film Festival.

In first-time writer-director Josh Locy's "Hunter Gatherer," Royo plays Ashley Douglas, an ex-felon with an indefatigable can-do attitude, looking to put his life back together after being released from prison. It's a role far removed from Bubbles, in a film far removed from "The Wire." And for Royo, 47, that's what made Ashley Douglas the perfect character for this stage of his career.

Sure, there's a little Bubbles in Douglas. But not as much as there isn't.

"If you talk to the director, he was worried with 'Hunter Gatherer,'" says Royo, calling from a temporary work base in California. "He was worried: 'Is there a similarity? Is there too much similarity from Bubbles to Ashley?' and I'm, like, 'Well, that's our job, that's our challenge, to make it different.'"

And it's not just that he's playing a different kind of character. There's been a good deal of that in the years since "The Wire" went off the air in 2008, including such roles as Mayor Robert "Bobo" Boston in Amazon's "Hand of God" and shady lawyer Thirsty Rawlings in Fox's "Empire."

In "Hunter Gatherer," Royo gets to play the lead character. And that's definitely a new experience.

"Me carrying a film, me being allowed to put a film on my shoulders — I'm the lead on this," he says. "It hasn't happened very often. Not by lack of trying on my part."

Another sign that Royo's turned something of a corner in his career? The producers of "Empire" were willing to arrange their shooting schedule so he could make "Hunter Gatherer," and the makers of that film were willing to alter their schedule to accommodate his availability.

"For an actor in my trajectory, I haven't heard a network say, 'We'll make sure you can do it,' and a movie say, 'We'll wait for you,'" says Royo. "Back in the day, if you weren't ready for a movie and you couldn't do it, they just went to the next actor. There was no 'wait for you.' That's a Denzel [Washington] conversation, 'We'll wait for you.'"

So yes, Bubbles has come a long way — from junkie to lawyer to mayor to leading man. And while Royo understands the limitations that earlier role may have placed on him, he's far from angry, or even sorry. He looks forward to returning to Baltimore for Sunday's screening (the Bronx native says Baltimore is "my second home"), and if fans here still welcome him as Bubbles, that's OK.

"I've gotten into a lot of rooms because of Bubbles," he says. "It's just made for a different kind of challenge.

"I mean, I was typecast as unemployed a lot longer, so I can't complain."

chris.kaltenbach@baltsun.com

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If you go

"Hunter Gatherer" screens at 7:15 p.m. Sunday at the Maryland Institute College of Art's Brown Center, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave. Tickets are $50, including admission to the festival's closing-night party. Information: mdfilmfest.com.