Snoop Dogg, the Ultimate in Cool

Snoop Dogg/Starsky and Hutch Interview by Paul Fischer in Los Angeles.

Snoop Dogg enters a room and exudes cool from the moment he lays eyes on you. This award-winning rapper is quietly intoxicating, donning a silk outfit with various sports teams emblazoned on his catching outfit. Snoop emerges as a man of style, the perfect choice to play the irrepressible Huggy Bear in the satiric, seventies-set action comedy Starsky and Hutch. Punctuating responses to questions with a sly 'you dig it', Snoop, says he felt it home co-starring in a film that reinvented one of his favourite eras. "To me, the seventies were very inspirational and very influential to me, with my whole persona as Snoop.
Dogg, as a person and as a rapper. I just love the seventies style, the way all the players dressed nice, you know, kept their hair looking good, drovesharp cars and talked real slick." It was no surprise that the rapper and occasional film star had an affinity playing Huggy. "That's me, baby and Huggy is me, ya dig?" In fact, Snoop manages to steal the movie from stars Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller that the filmmakers decided to shoot more of him following the completion of principal photography. "They told me I had to come do some more scenes, and I thought I had messed up. I didn't know, you dig?"

He didn't mess up and loved personifying 'cool' on screen. "It was great to be a cool dude in the movie, because I'm usually the bad guy or get killed in the movie. But this is a movie where I think the audience is going to be loving it, rooting for Huggy and wanting to see more of him."

33-year old Snoop Dogg, born Cordozar Broadus, got his rapping name from his mother who jokingly remarked that he looked like the Peanuts character Snoopy. Snoop is known primarily for his achievements in the music industry, as a gangsta MC. As most successful musicians seem to do at some point, Snoop Dogg began doing some work in film. Due to the nature of his music and his related star persona, the primary focus of his film effort has been in urban drama and comedy. Unfortunately, the talented MC has had more than one brush with the law: he served a drug conviction prior to the start of his career as a hip-hop MC, just after he graduated from high school; and in 1993, he was charged with murder but was later found not guilty. These days, a more subdued Snoop, says that he sees parallels between his music and his segue into acting. "I think through my videos I've always tried to show a little piece of acting, in every video I've been a part of. But they only give us four minutes for videos, so that's what really made me want to step into the movie world, because I wasn't able to breathe like I want to breathe on the video side like I am on the movie side. Therefore, hopefully everybody will be more interested in the next couple of projects I have coming out, and they will enjoy this one," he says, referring of course to Starsky and Hutch. Snoop has no doubt as to why rappers have become more successful actors than rock or pop stars of late. "I think it's because we take more time on our craft. Once a rapper gets respect as an actor, it's his job to step all the way up and want to be the best," says Snoop. "In the rap world, its so competitive- to be the best- so anything that we do we strive to be the best, which is why it's cool for us to take those knocks, bruises and bumps. Why are these rappers getting all of these roles? It's because the rappers deserve these roles, since when they pull them off and the movies make money, Hollywood's happy, and the rapper becomes an actor now."

Snoop has ambitions to extend his acting horizons on the big screen, and "just play in good movies with good directors, step up and get bigger and better. I don't want this to be as far as I can go." But fans of Snoop the rapper need not worry that he is abandoning them either, and has very clear goals on the music front. "I've gotta make one more record that solidifies my career," and says that he is very keen to work with Quincy Jones. "I think we could come up with something sharp." Up next for Snoop, both musically and cinematically, "is firstly this 213 record, which is me, Warren G and Nate Dogg that should be out late April or early May. I'm also developing a couple of scripts, and looking at a couple of scripts that have been offered to me."

Finally asked if there is anyone in the movie world Snoop would love to work with, he smiles and with a glint in his eye, says, "I want to work with Halle Berry on a real movie. Some live action, you dig? Hopefully my acting skills are raised to the level of hers. She could be a love interest- some Bonnie & Clyde shit, you dig?" Yean Snoop, we dig.


STARSKY AND HUTCH opens on APRIL 8.