Filming on city streets in marginal neighborhoods carries its peculiar risks and rewards …. Once, a man pressed a package of heroin into the hands of Andre Royo, the actor who plays the sympathetic junkie and police informant Bubbles, saying, “Man, you need a fix more than I do.” Royo refers to that moment as his “street Oscar.”

The New Yorker  has an article on”The Wire” that centers on it’s creator and writers during the filming of the last episode of the last (upcoming) season.