Emmy Award-nominated actor Michael K. Williams, best known for his roles in HBO shows The Wire and Lovecraft Country, died Monday afternoon. He was 54 years old. 

The actor, who received a 2021 Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for his appearance in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment by family members, according to The New York Times. The cause of death was not revealed but the death was being investigated as a possible drug overdose, the Times reported. 

Williams is arguably best known for his role as Omar Little in HBO’s drama series The Wire. Williams also appeared in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

HBO in a tweet said it was “devastated" to learn of Williams’ passing, adding that Williams has been an HBO family member for more than 20 years.

Williams also starred in SundanceTV's dark comedy series Hap and Leonard in the late 2010's. In a 2018 interview with Multichannel News, Williams talked about the  burgeoning opportunities actors and producers of color are finding on television.

Williams also garnered other Emmy nods in past years for acting performances in such shows as Netflix's When They See Us, and HBO's The Night Of and Bessie. When They See Us executive producer Ava DuVernay Monday posted on social media that Williams was a "flash of love -- now gone. But never forgotten." 

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New HBO programming head Casey Bloys will shepherd an impressive stable of scripted dramas, comedies, original movies and specials — the envy of most content distributors across virtually all distribution platforms — but he also has some holes to fill going forward.

Bloys replaces former president of programming Michael Lombardo. Under Lombardo, HBO last year racked up the greatest Emmy Awards performance in history, taking home a network record 43 of them in September, including a record haul of 12 for signature series Game of Thrones.

Bloys, who is also overseeing documentaries, films, sports and Cinemax programming, is in command of an upcoming slate HBO hopes will continue to thrive against emerging powers Netf lix, Amazon and Hulu along with more conventionally distributed rivals such as Showtime, Starz and FX.

With Game of Thrones winding down — it’s signed for another season and likely to have an eighth season, too, but showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss intimate the end is near — industry observers have wondered what HBO has cooking in terms of potential replacements.

High-profile springtime newcomer Vinyl, from creators Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese and starring Bobby Cannavale and Ray Romano, failed to live up to the hype, although it will return for one more go-round.

Vinyl averaged 4.3 million viewers across multiple plays and screens, according to HBO. Juggernaut Game of Thrones, by contrast, averaged 7.8 million viewers for its May 22 episode.

Sources close to the network say Bloys — who focused mostly on comedy series, late night and specials projects at HBO before adding drama series when executive vice president Michael Ellenberg left earlier in the year — already has his hands on a number of high-profile projects scheduled for this year. They include 1970s porn-themed The Deuce, from producer David Simon (The Wire, Treme); and an adapation of Westworld from Star Trek and Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.

Comedies Insecure from Issa Rae and Vice Principals, starring Danny McBride, are also in the queue, and drama series The Leftovers will continue with a third and final season.

Lombardo — credited with reviving HBO after a post-Sopranos creative slump with such shows as Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, True Detective and Girls — moves into a production role and will develop projects for the network.

His departure, after more than 30 years at the Time Warner Inc.-owned programmer, hit the trades the afternoon of Friday, May 20. The appointment of Bloys was announced May 23.

HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler praised Lombardo in a statement: “It goes without saying that Mike’s contributions over these many years, most especially in the last nine as president of programming, have been nothing short of extraordinary.”

Along with Ellenberg’s departure, HBO in December named longtime executive Peter Nelson as executive vice president of HBO Sports, replacing Ken Hershman, who had resigned a month prior.

Some 3 million people witnesses saw HBO shut down its prohibition-era drama, Boardwalk Empire, on Sunday night.

The premium network bid adieu to Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson on Oct. 26 with 2.3 million tuning in the series’ finale at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen data. That was up 7% from last year’s season finale.

Tacking on watchers from encore installments, Boardwalk closed its final original night with 3 million viewers.

During its final stroll, Boardwalk Empire averaged a gross audience of 6.6 million viewers per episode across encores and digital airings.