Renowned Hollywood actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. died from a brief illness in New York City on December 30. He was 71. His longtime manager Brian Liebman announced the death in an email to the Associated Press. He also posted on Instagram with a few pictures of the late actor.“It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my dear friend and client Isiah Whitlock Jr. If you knew him, you loved him. A brilliant actor and even better person. May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”Whitlock Jr. will be best remembered for playing the role of corrupt Senator R. Clayton ‘Clay’ Davis for five seasons on the HBO series The Wire. On the show, his character would once use the catchphrase “Sheeeeeeeee-it” during plot-changing moments.However, the expression was first used by Isiah Whitlock Jr.’s character Agent Flood on the 2002 Spike Lee directorial, The 25th Hour, after he discovered a box of drugs under a couch. Spike Lee, who went on to direct Whitlock Jr. on five more movies, paid tribute to the actor on Tuesday. Speaking with the Associated Press, the filmmaker noted:“It's a big, big, big loss. I'm going to miss him for the rest of my life. We vibed over all those years. We clicked from the jump. He was just a beautiful, beautiful soul.”Lee added:“If you were around him, he made everybody feel good in his presence. He would radiate. I would put that over his acting… He was hilarious. That was just his nature; he made people laugh. Everybody was in on the joke.” View this post on Instagram Instagram PostHe also recalled meeting Isiah Whitlock Jr. and his daughter Satchel at an October screening of Kiss of the Spider Woman this year.More about Isiah Whitlock Jr.’s iconic catchphraseDuring a 2008 conversation with HoboTrashCan, Isiah Whitlock Jr. shared the origin of “sheeeeeeeee-it.” He explained:“I did it [in 25th Hour], and I did it in She Hate Me. But then, when I got onto The Wire, I saw a couple of opportunities where I could do it, and I did. And they started writing it in.”The late actor also recalled how a fan once tried to draw his attention by using the catchphrase in public.“I was in, I think, Grand Central Station, and far away I heard someone say it and they'd be kind of smiling. I'm glad people enjoy it,” he noted.Later, in November 2021, Isiah Whitlock Jr. appeared on the podcast Classic Conversations with Jeff Dwoskin, formerly called Live From Detroit: The Jeff Dwoskin Show, and spoke about his famous catchphrase “Sheeeeeeeee-it.”Whitlock Jr. recalled that in the early 2000s, he was doing a play written by Christopher Shin at the now-closed Tribeca Playhouse in NYC. One day, Spike Lee came to watch the onstage production, which ultimately led to their lifelong collaboration.“Spike came and saw the play. And then after the play, he came back and chatted with the cast a little bit. And then he called me in for an audition. I went to the audition. That's where the ‘sheeeeeeeee-it’ came from,” Isiah explained.The Veep star confirmed that the phrase was derived from the cuss-word “sh*t” and continued:“I was doing that, not thinking that you know it was going to become this sort of catchphrase. I think it was just something right off the cuff. And I did it there. Spike had me do it in ‘The 25th Hour’ a couple of times. That's how that started.”Isiah Whitlock Jr. also mentioned to Jeff Dwoskin how this was his “first prominent movie,” which kind of “launched” him. He added that working with Lee and developing a lifelong bond was “great” and he would forever be “indebted” to Spike for giving him his moment.It is noteworthy that in collaboration with Dwoskin, Whitlock Jr. also launched the hashtag campaign #MakesMeSaySheeeeeeeeeit on X, formerly Twitter, around the same time as the podcast.Six months before the Jeff Dwoskin interview, Isiah Whitlock Jr. teamed up with the Levity Department to launch a web series titled The Whitlock Academy, where he coached the new generation of actors to deliver their version of “sheeeeeeeee-it.” It was directed by Assal Ghawami.Levity Department head and The Whitlock Academy producer and co-writer Richard Hine told The Daily Dot in May 2021:“The catchphrase has dominated his life, and we wanted to have a little bit of fun with that in producing The Whitlock Academy… He has a lot of fun with Twitter and enjoys interacting with fans, and obviously, most of the interaction revolves around his character of Clay Davis and The Wire.”Hine also gave out the secret to saying the ideal “sheeeeeeeee-it.”“There are certain rules, like ‘sheeeeeeeeeit’ always has to have nine E’s and one I and the actor has to be able to feel all those E’s if they deliver it—otherwise they’re not really doing it justice. We recorded a few episodes, and we’re going to put them out there and see what happens. If people like it, we’ll try and do more and continue to have fun with it.”The opening episode of The Whitlock Academy concluded with Isiah Whitlock Jr. comparing his iconic catchphrase to David Gelb’s Jiro Dreams of Sushi, where the eponymous character spent his life trying to perfect the art of sushi-making.Gelb, in turn, returned the favor, by saying:“Proof that it takes a lifetime to master your sheeeeeeeee-it.”Meanwhile, Richard Hine encouraged fans of the catchphrase to tweet their own versions and stories surrounding “sheeeeeeeee-it” and have Isiah Whitlock Jr. “judge the ones” they chose to retweet.Besides The 25th Hour, Isiah Whitlock Jr. appeared in more Spike Lee films, including She Hates Me (2004), Red Hook Summer (2012), Chi-Raq (2015), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Da 5 Bloods (2020).Lee told AP in the aftermath of Isiah’s demise that they both shared fond memories on location in Thailand for their final film together.Meanwhile, HBO crime drama The Wire’s showrunner David Simon paid tribute to Whitlock Jr. via Bluesky.“As fine an actor as he was, Isiah was an even better spirit and the greatest gentleman,” Simon wrote.Earlier this month, the industry lost Isiah’s co-star from The Wire, aka James Ransone, on December 19. He died by suicide at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 46.Isiah Whitlock Jr. last appeared in the 2023 movie Cocaine Bear. He has two unreleased films in post-production: Disney animated film Hoppers, which will premiere in early 2026, and The Body is Water by Vicky Wight, the release date of which remains undisclosed.