On Monday, Melissa Pope’s biggest role to date will air Monday night on TV One’s Fatal Attraction, a true crime and documentary series.

The episode airs at 9 p.m.

The role comes just in a year’s time of acting for the Garysburg native who lives and works in Atlanta, and has been a featured background actor in some of Tyler Perry’s TV shows.

Working in mortgage for the last 20 years, the 1993 Northampton County High School-West graduate plans next year to break from the business world to concentrate on her acting and modeling.

“When the mortgage business kind of went to the left because of the rates being high I prayed to God to just show me my purpose and opportunities came through that I was able to work with Tyler Perry,” she said Tuesday. “I’ve done a lot of shows with him as a featured background actress. I’ve been in the room with him. He knows who I am.”

In that year’s time she has done a movie with The Rock and just did a Disney + film with Ludicrous called Dashing through the Snow.

• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
•  

Her willingness to make that move comes from the grounded life lessons she learned growing up in Northampton County as the daughter of Ivey Pope Webb and David Lee Boyd as well the influence of the man she calls her “father in love” — attorney Sammy D. Webb. “I just want to highlight my hometown because I’ll never forget where I came from.”

Acting was never really in the future plans, she said. “Modeling was my end goal. I would see people acting and thought I could do that but it was never (something she thought of pursuing). My thing was fashion because my mom did fashion. That’s all I ever loved was fashion.”

Then she moved to Atlanta where the film industry has been growing. “So many people said you should do acting, you should do this, you should do that and I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to try it.’ I’m so glad I jumped out there because of the blessings that have come my way. In one year I have worked in nine movies. That’s not including two more coming in December and then of course Fatal Attraction on Monday which will be worldwide. I’m just so grateful.” 

She has been in Atlanta for two-and-a-half years. “I just always wanted to live here. I had a lot of friends who already lived here. It was the best thing I ever could have done for myself. I’m still in the mortgage business but next year I’m walking out completely on faith and focusing completely on my acting and focusing completely on my modeling — building up fashion brands and things like that. I’m definitely next year walking out on faith and following my dream.”

Working with Perry has been an inspiration, she said. “Working with him shows me that anything is possible. He’s so hardworking. Just being on set with him he’s very, very serious about his craft. He does not play on set. You can’t come up there thinking you’re going to play and joke around. He really is about business. His success is a result of that. He’s just an amazing person.” 

Just being in a room with him, she said, “Gives me chills. He treats us so well. He makes sure we eat well, he pays us well. He’s just a great person and he’s so fair to everybody. He just gives people opportunities that people never thought they would be able to do. It’s just a blessing working with him.”

The biggest inspiration from having worked with Perry, she said, is, “No matter how tired I get, whenever I feel like I want to give up I just think of him because he went through a lot. If he can do it, who do I think I am to just quit? He has taught me to be resilient, to be a go-getter.”

The Fatal Attraction role was one she auditioned for. “You had to have some resemblance to the person and you had to be able to act out the scenes. This role was a little difficult for me because it’s based on a true story and someone truly lost their life. It took me a few days to get out of character because I absolutely embodied this amazing woman's demise. Everyone will see me in a different light and I am so excited and nervous all at the same time.”

Monday’s episode is about a single mother who vanishes on Thanksgiving, leaving authorities to theorize whether she has fallen prey to her battle with addiction. When authorities learn who she was last seen with, they discover they may not just be looking for their victim — but a killer.

Since beginning acting in 2022, Pope says, she “has not taken her foot off the gas and I will not. My work ethics are instilled in me from my upbringing and I was raised to always be humble and go after anything I felt fit to.”

She is especially proud of her graduating class of 1993 and “the most amazing principal — Dr. Willie Gilchrist and all my teachers that I’m sure I got on their last nerve. I thank my mother for always pushing me to be my best and my brother Tio Thompson for always being my sounding board. My advice is to never give up on your dreams. There’s no age limit on success.”