Just after ending his Broadway run in in the solo stage biography Thurgood, Laurence Fishburne was named the newest cast member on the hit CBS series CSI. He will join the show on the ninth episode, replacing original cast member William Peterson. Peterson, who will remain an executive producer of CSI, now entering its ninth season, will star in Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company beginning November 6, directed by August Osage: County star Amy Morton.
Fishburne will reportedly play a former pathologist who senses violent tendencies within himself. A Tony winner for August Wilson's Two Trains Running, he was nominated for a 2008 Best Actor Tony for his performance as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His many films include an Oscar nominated performance as Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It?, Akeelah and the Bee, The Matrix series, Mission Impossible III and Mystic River.
Fishburne is the latest theater vet to join the CSI franchise. During Peterson's 2006 sabbatical to star in Dublin Carol at Trinity Rep, Tony winner Liev Schreiber did a multiple-episode arc which ended in his character's murder. Gary Sinise, co-founder of Steppenwolf Theatre, stars in the spinoff series CSI: New York.
