The Wire Tap: Felicia "Snoop" Pearson
Published Sunday, February 10, 2008 2:00 PM





By Dove ~Sheepish Lordess of Chaos~



In this world of wannabes, copycats and biters, few originals remain. Felicia “Snoop” Pearson is an ambitious young woman with a style and presence that is incomparable to anyone. Not only is The Wire going down in the books as one of the greatest shows on Television, Felicia’s character Snoop (which is also her nickname in real life) is going to be remembered as one of the scariest female gangsters in Hollywood.



When we first spoke to the actress last year about her troubled past and how she came about landing a role on The Wire, she told us about a book she was working on. She did release the novel Grace After Midnight in 2007, which is based on her own life. She has since found a great comfort in her new role as a role model, and Snoop’s excitement about life is evident as we catch up on her career.



We got a little insight from Snoop about her character’s mindset, her work with young people and troubled women, and her goals for life after The Wire.



AllHipHop.com: Snoop has always had an "I don't care" type of swagger since she was introduced on The Wire, but that seems to have progressed into an even scarier cold-hearted apathy about her work. What is going through Snoop's mind as she sees Marlo taking hold of the city?



Felicia “Snoop” Pearson: The character Snoop is a soldier and Marlo is the General. It’s not for her to question Marlo or his orders, he says to do it… she do it. It’s work, it ain’t personal, so nah, Snoop don’t care about who she got to do, cause she just following orders. If a soldier starts caring about the people he got to go kill in a war, then he ain’t gonna want to be a soldier no more. How does she feel about Marlo taking over the city? That’s what we came there to do. [laughs]



We came on in Season Three - Snoop, Marlo and Chris, planning to take over the corners, so now that we got them Snoop feels like… Well, on one hand she feels like they on top, ‘cause she is right up there Marlo’s left hand, but on the other hand she knows she got a lot more to worry about. Cops are still thinking about all those bodies in the vacants and crazy ass Omar gonna be trying to get at all of us, so I guess you can say she’s a little nervous about that. But not much, ‘cause she knows that it can happen any time, any where.



AllHipHop.com: So are you trying to tell us something?



Snoop: Nah, nah [laughs] I’m just saying, that’s what’s on Snoop’s mind.



AllHipHop.com: Chris seems to be Snoop's only friend. Does she care about anything in life outside of her job, and does she even see a future for herself in the world?



Snoop: Snoop don’t believe in friends, ‘cause Snoop don’t trust nobody but Marlo and Chris. So Marlo and Chris are her only friends. She’s cool with some of the rest of the team, but if you don’t trust people you can’t consider them your friends and they damn sure can’t be considered family. Does she see a future for herself… I don’t know. Snoop lives everyday as it comes and doesn’t really think about her future the way other people think about their futures.



AllHipHop.com: Does Snoop find any pleasure in "mentoring" the younger hitmen like Michael, or pleasure in anything outside of killing for that matter?



Snoop: She enjoys being good at what she does, and likes the fact that everybody respects and fears her. The younger soldiers look up to her and have respect for her. Yeah, Snoop does find pleasure in that. See, Snoop gets to teach them what she knows and she makes it kind of fun for them, like war games. That’s when you can actually see that Snoop is smart too.



In fact the whole Stanfield organization is smart, we’re all good at what we do, we think first. The Snoop character is the perfect match for Marlo and Chris ‘cause while they go around building the business, Snoop keeps training and building the army and teaches them to be thinkers too. That’s why we wanted Michael to join up with us, ‘cause he’s smart too. So Snoop mentors killers, but killers who think - and yeah, Snoop enjoys that.



AllHipHop.com: Everyone in the streets always had a healthy fear of Omar. Now that the war with Omar is in full swing, and Snoop is on the frontlines, is she still fearful of him?



Snoop: Snoop respects Omar. It’s not about fear, but she plans to get him before he can get them. But that Spiderman sh*t.. [laughs] I dunno. Yeah, Snoop is definitely very respectful right now [laughs].



AllHipHop.com: You released your first book last year. How has the experience of openly sharing your life like that been?



Snoop: Oh man, it’s been wild! I wanted to tell my story, because I want people to understand who Felicia Pearson is. I mean people is always asking me, “is you a boy or a girl” or did you really kill somebody? If I’m gay, like I’m supposed to say, “No, I ain’t gay” - man get out of here.


I am a female, I am gay and I’m not proud about the fact that I killed somebody. It was in self defense. I was a kid and I handled it like the hard-head kid that I was back then - all wrong. I’m not trying to say that it’s all over with, ‘cause trust me, not a day goes by where I don’t wish I can change what happened. But, I can’t.



AllHipHop.com: Do you have plans for more books or even a movie on your life?



Snoop: Yeah, I plan to make a movie from the book Grace After Midnight, and write other stories about people who maybe nobody knows who they are, but they have a story to tell like mine.



AllHipHop.com: You've done quite a bit of work speaking to young people about staying in school, staying out of trouble, etc. What are you doing these days to mentor kids and young adults? Do you work specifically with troubled women?



Snoop: Well that was one of the reasons I wanted to write my book, because I think that maybe some kids coming up now will read it and I hope it will stop them from making some of the mistakes I made. Right now me and Jamie Hector have an youth group called Moving Mountains Inc. Jamie started it in NY, and so I started the sister group in Baltimore, watch it’s an East Coast movement to stop youth violence, teach performing arts and help kids who really want to get off the streets and stay out of trouble.



I also check for the women in prisons. I go do visits and let them know that they are not forgot about and that they are gonna be all right. See right now they’re in “Midnight,” that’s the time in my life that I call Midnight in my book, I was going through it. But see God showed me Grace, that’s where I am now. I’m living in Grace After Midnight [laughs]. You’re gonna have to get the book to understand.



AllHipHop.com: Although there aren't many characters like Snoop, do you have any favorite female Hollywood gangsters?



Snoop: Who do I like? Oh, female, Hollywood gangsters? Nah.



AllHipHop.com: What are you working on as far as film and TV now that The Wire is done?



Snoop: Well I just hosted a week of Rap City for BET. That was fun; shout out to Q45, he was cool joking around with us and all. Said he needed a break for a minute. [laughs] Besides that, I’ve been reading some scripts and going on some auditions, but you know with this strike going on, there hasn’t been a whole lot to go for. Man, I’ll be glad, everybody will be glad when the strike is done. I really want to get on The L Word; they need to write a role for me on there. Let me take all of Shane’s girls [laughs].



I’ve been in the studio too, so I hope to have a hit out soon. If you would have told me a few years ago that I would be on one of the best shows on TV and have a serious book deal, I would have said you was buggin’! Now I know all things are possible, so I’m gonna do it all - and I advise all of you readers to do the same.