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Felicia “Snoop” Pearson struggles to find acting jobs

If you watched The Wire when it aired on HBO between 2002 and 2008, you were introduced to Felicia Pearson, or Snoop as she was called both on the show and in real life by those who know her. The Baltimore-based actress was plucked out of a club for a role she fit perfectly – a butch lesbian criminal with a strong accent and a hard look.

Snoop might have been typecast, but she could act. Unfortunately, there weren’t a ton of roles available to her after she was killed off in Season 5 and she ended up back selling drugs in one of Baltimore’s crime-ridden neighborhood. A new profile of Snoop in the latest Rolling Stone magazine took us inside what the aspiring actor has been up to since she was arrested for being part of a drug ring last year, and her hopes for a Hollywood future.

Right before The Wire ended for her, Snoop was called into audition for the role of Tasha on The L Word, Rolling Stone writes. But her acting coach said she was reading the lines as Snoop and didn’t get the part. (Rose Rollins was cast instead.)

She also auditioned for the role of Lil’ Kim in Notorious, but said she knew it wasn’t the right fit. “I wasn’t Kim at all,” Snoop told Rolling Stone. But she still hoped to audition for parts that weren’t just about violence and gangs. “I want to show people that I’m not just a killer,” she said.

Ironically, Snoop has killed someone. She served five years for the murder of another young girl. Rolling Stone writes:

To ease the boredom, she busied herself manufacturing dildos for the other prisoners.

These kinds of anecdotes are also in Snoop’s 2007 memoir, Grace After Midnight, and while she rose to fame when The Wire proved successful, she lost her house to foreclosure and went back to the neighborhood referred to as “the Cyst.” The writer of Snoop’s profile aims to prove that she, along with other children who grow up in the same neighborhood of Baltimore, are products of their environment to the point of being unable to exist without becoming a part of the drugs, gangs and violence they are surrounded by.

While Snoop tries to get away from it, auditioning for roles in indie films and planning for an eventual move to Los Angeles, she keeps getting pulled back into things that The Wire creator David Simon (also a former Baltimore cop) argues isn’t her fault. Simon argues “the opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.” But Snoop herself says she is trying to mature and get her act together: “Everybody got to find their own way out.”

Snoop is wrapping production on a film called Diamond Ruff. As you can see in the trailer, she’s playing someone who definitely owns a gun, and knows how to use it.

Despite still living in Baltimore and putting a move to L.A. on hold, Snoop still insists The Wire will not be the biggest thing she ever does. “I mean, I’m going to make it bigger than that,” she tells Rolling Stone. I hope she’s right.

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