American actor James Ransone, best known for playing dock worker-turned-petty criminal Chester “Ziggy” Sobotka in Season 2 of David Simon’s Baltimore crime drama The Wire, was found dead at his Los Angeles residence on Friday, according to US media reports.
Ransone, 46, died by suicide, according the the medical examiner.
Ransone acted alongside Alexander Skarsgård in Generation Kill, also helmed by Simon, portraying real-life Marine Cpl Josh Ray Person across all seven episodes of the HBO series.
He more recently appeared in It: Chapter Two as Eddie Kaspbrak.
Ransone was born in Baltimore in 1979 and attended the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson, Maryland, from 1993 to 1997. He got his break co-starring in the 2002 teen drama Ken Park before landing his role on The Wire a year later.
In 2021, Ransone said he was sexually abused by a former tutor who worked in Maryland public schools. He wrote on Instagram that the abuse was a factor in later alcohol and heroin addictions.
Celebrity news outlet Page Six reported that Ransone in 2020 reported the abuse he described, but authorities declined to pursue criminal charges.
Ransone in 2016 told Interview magazine he would “wrestle with the catharsis of acting”.
Some of his roles required him to humanise characters who were not likable. “So I find myself living in a lot of unlikable skin,” he said. “As a result of that, I don’t always feel good.”