ALBAWABA - James Ransone, well known for his roles on The Wire, It: Chapter Two, and The Black Phone, died on December 19. He was 46.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner says that James Ransone died by suicide.
Ransone was born in Baltimore on June 2, 1979. He went to the George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology and then spent a year at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
His first title for a movie or TV show was in 2001's The American Astronaut. He got his best part in The Wire in 2003. In the second season of the HBO thriller, which was about drug dealing on the street to the Port of Baltimore, he played Chester “Ziggy” Sobotka.
Ransone played Eddie Kaspbrak in It: Chapter Two in 2019, acting with Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, and Bill Skarsgård. In the sequel, set 27 years after the first meeting with the scary Pennywise, the members of the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, but a shocking phone call makes them return.
Photo by KEVIN WINTER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
James Ransone also played Max in The Black Phone, which came out in 2021, and The Black Phone 2, which came out in 2025. Both movies starred Mason Thames and Ethan Hawke. In the first episode, a masked killer who enjoys hurting others has trapped a 13-year-old boy in a soundproof basement. He quickly discovers that the ringing of a stolen phone allows him to hear the sounds of the murderer's previous victims.
He also appeared in Sean Baker's 2015 breakthrough film, Tangerine, where he portrayed Chester, a dubious boyfriend and boss of a transgender sex worker.
James Ransone has also acted in many other shows and movies, such as Poker Face, SEAL Team, Deadwax, The First, Mosaic, It Happened In L.A., Bosch, Sinister 2, Oldboy, Low Winter Sun, Empire State, Treme, Sinister, How to Make It in America, Hawaii Five-0, Generation Kill, Law & Order, Nola, and Third Watch.
