Laverne Cox to Be the First Transgender Actor to Play a Transgender Main Character on a Broadcast TV Show
The actor will star in the upcoming CBS legal drama 'Doubt'
With Saturday’s series pickup of her new show, Laverne Cox continues to break new ground for transgender actors.
Cox will play a series regular character in the upcoming CBS legal drama Doubt, making her the first transgender actor to portray a transgender main character on a broadcast series, Deadline reports.
The Orange Is the New Black star, 31, was part of both the show’s original pilot, which was not picked up last season, and the re-ordered second pilot, which replaced the two original leads with Katherine Heigl and Steven Pasquale.
Doubt, which is produced by Grey’s Anatomy‘s Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, features Heigl as a “smart, chic, successful defense lawyer at a boutique firm [who] starts to fall for her charismatic client, who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime,” according to Deadline.