If you missed last week’s episode of Snowfall you may want to go watch it before you read the rest of this interview!
Source: Ray Micksaw / FX
Well, Gail Bean and Isaiah John tried to warn us that a funeral was imminent, and this week we’ll get it. We chatted with Snowfall actress Angela Lewis, better known as “Aunt Louie” Saint, ahead of episode 7, which is set to air tonight, Wednesday, March 29th.
We’ve seen some of the social media posts so we had to check if Lewis has been paying attention to the public response to the death of her onscreen husband Jerome Saint, played by Amin Joseph, in last week’s episode.
“Yeah,” Lewis told BOSSIP with a laugh. “I’m getting all kind of responses. Mostly people who are mad and like, ‘It should have been you Louie!’ But some people are like, ‘Are you okay?’ It’s intense though.”
Source: Ray Mickshaw / FX
Lewis and Joseph have been scene partners for the last six years, and Angela confirmed that filming without Amin hasn’t been easy for her.
“It’s hard, it was very hard,” Angela said. “The hardest was, we have these double-up days where we might be doing pickups from a previous episode while we’re shooting the current episode so we have two different crews. If I walk onto set with a crew that I don’t know — I don’t know anybody. Normally I at least have Amin so that makes it normal and not having him there was really hard. I felt very lonely. I could feel Louie feeling scared and angry that he wasn’t there. It was hard.”
You can never really wash your hands of the game when it’s meant to wash you.
All-new #SnowfallFX. Weds 10p on FX. Stream on @hulu. pic.twitter.com/TiEvzdbmmQ
— Snowfall (@SnowfallFX) March 28, 2023
A whole lot of Snowfall fans were even more angry at Lewis’ character after seeing the preview for this week, where she is seen blaming Franklin for her husband’s death. We noticed more than a few fans taking issue with Louie’s lack of accountability — something that Lewis argues isn’t the real issue. Instead, the actress pointed out why Louie’s logic makes sense to her.
“I don’t think that she’s not taking responsibility,” Lewis told BOSSIP. “How could she not? Jerome is the love of her life and he’s gone. She was his partner. In so many ways and on so many levels. But Franklin is the one who told Kane she put the hit out on him. Franklin is the one that told Kane where she was going to be, meaning the stables. When she was captured, Louie wasn’t out at the skating rink or the grocery store. She was somewhere obscure where no one could find her. And Franklin told. So he snitched on her twice. So yeah it’s Franklin’s fault.”
Whew… Now that we look at it that way — Is she right? Is Franklin more to blame for Jerome’s death? Or does Louie share that burden?
We also chatted with Angela about playing a “villain,” why Teddy is so insidious and what to expect moving forward with the sixth and final season. Hit the flip for more.
For Snowfall’s most faithful fans Aunt Louie’s transition into villainy has been a frightening ride…
Source: Ray Mickshaw / FX
However, Angela Lewis has relished the transformation.
“Villains are fun to play,” Lewis told us when we asked her about going full baddie in season six. “Ursula [from ‘The Little Mermaid’] is one of my favorite characters ever.”
Source: Ray Micksaw / FX
Still, most fans would agree that Louie’s treachery pales in comparison to Teddy McDonald, the CIA agent who has served as Franklin’s number-one supplier for most of the franchise’s history.
“If you talk to Carter I’m sure he has a different perspective than all of us,” Angela Lewis said of her Snowfall co-star. “What I don’t like about Teddy is he represents a larger problem that does not take accountability. In fact, it goes above and beyond to hide and lie about its participation in the Black community over and over and over and over again for years and years and years. And still. And still! That’s my issue with Teddy.
Lewis isn’t done with critics of her character, however. She’d like to remind folks that the Louie we’re all seeing is someone who has learned to respond in kind and that too many people who take issue with her fail to hold Franklin to the same standard.
“I’m not mad that people hate Louie, it was a collaboration of thought that I was part of for Louie to become a villain, so I’m not mad that people hate her,” Lewis told BOSSIP. “What upsets me is the lack of logic that people are using in their reasoning for hating Louie. People are mad that Louie had that crackhead cop put a gun on Franklin — but Franklin had a gun in Louie’s face two seconds before that so that doesn’t make sense to me. People are mad that Louie stole $73 million dollars from Franklin but that is not true. Teddy stole his money and Louie had nothing to do with it. For me, it’s the math. It’s like, are you watching the show?”
Perhaps the part that people like to forget most is that Louie became who she is today after her own near brush with death.
“It’s huge,” Lewis told BOSSIP about the impact being shot had on Louie’s trajectory. “I think people leave that part out too. Louie had been playing Franklin’s right hand for seasons. From the beginning, she was his right hand and she was instrumental in his success. She wasn’t asking to be front and center UNTIL she was on the ground bleeding out because of a decision that Franklin made.”
Source: Ray Micksaw / FX
Lewis continued, saying, “I think anybody who is in a work situation where you are bringing 90% of the profits in and you are helping to strategize and make the best decisions and when your boss doesn’t do what you say do and it all hits the fan. Or when you make a request, the next thing you know your boss is screaming at you and can’t see you’ve been instrumental in your help, and now you’ve been shot and almost died? I would think when you come back from that you’ve done a lot of thinking and are like ‘You know what it’s time for me to do my own thing. If you not thinking like that what are we really doing with life? Louie is all good with me.”
Once she puts it that way are you giving Louie more grace?
We tried our best to get Angela to let us know whether Louie will side with Teddy or Franklin in the end but she wouldn’t spill!
“What I can say is that Louie’s emotions are all over the place right now and she’s trying to figure it out and whatever the answer is, it’s not going to be an easy one,” Lewis told BOSSIP. “We have a messy story and you can expect to be screaming at your TV. It’s going to be messy.”
We’re on the edge of our seats! Tune in to FX tonight at 9pm for a brand new episode of Snowfall. Catch up on old episodes (and seasons) on HULU.
