Entertainment

Laverne Cox Has An Amazing New Role

by Alanna Bennett

Listen up, world, because this is important. It is half past time for Laverne Cox to be everywhere. The Orange Is the New Black star has been kicking ass for two seasons as Sophia Burset, and kicking even more ass offscreen as an all-star activist advocate for trans rights — not to mention a reliable Beyoncé dancer. She's great, basically. And now we'll be getting her in more than one show: Cox was just cast in CBS' Doubt, making this her first regular role on network television. Insert praise hands here.

According to TVLine, Doubt is a drama pilot coming to CBS from Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, a team known for their work on productions like Grey's Anatomy and Madam Secretary. It will not, as was my first instinct at spotting the title, be an adaptation of the play and Oscar-nominated movie that first brought Viola Davis attention from the masses. Instead, it centers on a lawyer for a boutique firm who “shockingly gets romantically involved with one of her clients — who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime.”

As for who Cox will be playing, that'd be Cameron Wirth, an Ivy Lague-educated transgender attorney. They sold me at "Laverne Cox," but the rest sounds good, too. And what's more, Deadline reports that Cox would be the first transgender series regular for a broadcast television show who is actually played by a transgender actor. That's a mouthful, but it's also groundbreaking.

I cannot wait to see Cox killin' it on network television. And on all television. And all over the place. All the time.