Though he’s an icon of West Coast gangster rap and marijuana mogul, Snoop Dogg is becoming a family film figurehead in this season of his career. The Hip Hop legend has returned to the Addams Family franchise to reprise his role as Cousin Itt, the charismatic extended family member with a flair and language all his own.
“I had a good time doing it, I had a good time involving my family and my friends and the little kids in my football league that love The Addams Family and love the dynamics of watching [animated] movies like that,” Snoop said of the family film.
Despite the fact that he has become a household name based on raunchy and raw Hip Hop content and violent movie roles over the years, Snoop welcomes this change of pace. He says starring in this family series is a great opportunity to use his iconic voice and signature persona in a way that’s child-friendly.
“It gave me a chance to really diversify my portfolio and do things that I’ve always wanted to do in the kids’ space and not have to change my persona or who I am and still remain me, but do things that the kids can actually enjoy.”
“This is crazy because for Cousin Itt, you don’t understand nothing he’s saying,” Snoop laughed. Cousin Itt has always been unintelligible in every iteration of the character, but the rapper’s version has a special “language’ of his own.
Cousin Itt’s actual speech is simply Snoop Dogg’s lines played backward, so though he is indeed responding to everything other characters are saying to him, his replies are in reverse.
“I kept getting into little battles, because ‘why do I have to do a voice-over [a certain way] when nobody’s going to understand what he’s saying?’” Snoop recalled. “But I got a feeling that they’re going to do some kind of trick where when you get the movie and take it home, you can play it backwards you can understand what I’m saying forwards.”
Even though the rapper’s voice is reversed and pitched up in the film, he says his grandchildren definitely know “Papa Snoop” when they hear him.
“I don’t even tell them I’m in the movie. I just let it happen,” he said of taking his grandkids to see his films. “Either they hear my voice or see me on screen and they go crazy.”