>HR: Well, David, I know one actress that a lot of people are curious about is Felicia Pearson, who plays Snoop…

* applause *

HR: … the hit… the hit girl. And when I was told she wasn’t going to be here I was relieved cause she scares the hell out of me.

* laughter *

HR: How was she cast?

DS: I should turn that to Michael. Let Michael tell that story.

AR: Michael K. Williams.

DS: You can start the story, anyway. (looks in other direction) Oh, sorry, wrong way.

* laughter *

HR: Michael.

MKW: I met Felicia at a bar in Baltimore. It was like, 1:30 in the morning, and the waitress was not getting to VIP in time for last calls, so I tied up my booth and said, okay, I’ma man this crowd and go to the bar myself and get my own drink, you know? So, that’s what I was doing, and she came up to me at the bar and was like, you know, “Hey, you know, I love your work on The Wire…” she didn’t ask me for anything, she just told me she loved the work and she gave me a compliment. So, um, I was like, you know, thanks, and I was trying to get away and was like, “Oh, my God, who let this little boy in the club?” And…

* laughter *

MKW: … authorities, I don’t want them to think I bought her in here…

* laughter *

MKW: … and they throw both of us out, I’m trying to get my last call in. So, I was like, you know, I was really trying to get away from her. And she… she saw that I didn’t lock into her the way she… I don’t know, she just saw that I didn’t really get it. And so, she, um, cause she’s naturally just… just very androgynous, doesn’t have to try to do anything. So, she grabbed me and said, “I got something to tell you,” (and) I’m like, “What?” She said, “Well, I’m a girl, it’s my 25th birthday and I just came home.” And, like, this, this light, I had this epiphany, and I was… I started staring at her. Then, all of a sudden, she was like, “Back up, now!”

* laughter *

MKW: “Wait a minute. Back up!”

* laughter *

MKW: I was just… I just… I fell in love with her, and she… I just, um, I just, you know, I gave her my number, I begged her to please call me the next day, just… I can’t even really remember what it is I saw. I just… when she told me she was a young lady…

* laughter *

MKW: … and um…

* laughter *

AR: That was it!

MKW: … it just really… I just wanted to just really… I saw a lot of pain in her eyes. I saw the, um, I saw the struggle instantly, and I just wanted to grab her and just say, “I got you.” And the best way I could do that without offending her was just to give her my number and tell her to call me, I think I could… I think I got a job for you. And I prayed like Hell that weekend, and I… I just… I just hope that she didn’t… she didn’t scare Ed and David (* laughs *). But, um, I bought… I bought ‘em to her, and they saw what I did, and when I spoke to Ed again, I was like, I didn’t hear anything from this… they had a meeting, I didn’t hear anything about this… the meeting, you know, nobody call… got back to me, so I was kinda scared, like, “Did she kill ‘em?” (* laughs *)

* laughter *

MKW: And um, I called… I remember calling Ed, and I asked, uh, Ed, “What you think? Did you like her?” And I just remember him saying, “Thank you.” He thanked me for, um, bringing… bringing her to the family. And that’s gotta be one of the most, um, the most beautiful feelings I’ve ever felt, that… is when they accepted her, received her.

* applause *

MKW: And I gotta say, um, although… I must say, though, although, yeah, I… I met her in the streets of Baltimore, she’s never done this kind of work before. Um, she’s, um… she rose to the occasion like nobody I’ve (ever) seen, and now she’s working with Robert Chew, who plays Proposition Joe. Robert Chew has a theater company in Baltimore, and a lot of the kids on the show come through his company. So now Felicia’s with him, and she studies, and, um… I’m just… I’m just… I’m just really proud to be in her life. Yeah.

* applause *

HR: Well, I had asked you earlier, uh, Ernest, about… directing people who didn’t have a lot of experience. Is that a difficult thing to do?

Ernest Dickerson: Um, it’s something that… when I started my career as a director, I had actors that didn’t have a lot of experience. My first film, um, we brought in a young guy named Tupac Shakur, who had never done anything before…

* applause *

SS: Mmm hmm, Juice.

ED: … and, uh, and a lot of the… and uh… Omar Epps had never done anything before; he was still in high school. So, you know, it’s, it’s finding people who know who that character is. And when I came on board The Wire that was the great thing about it. Even though they didn’t have the experience, they know… they knew who their character was. And uh, and, you know, (there’s) a lot of life experience in there too, you know, which, which they tap into and everything. But um, I found out that actually, all I had to do was just set up the situation and get out of the way.
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