‘Doubt’ cast member Laverne Cox on making TV history: ‘I’m grateful to have a job as an actor’

Let’s face it, it’s pretty tough to talk about the new CBS legal drama Doubt without discussing the historic casting of transgender actress Laverne Cox as a series regular.

‘I’m grateful to have a job as an actor,’ Cox said earlier today during a session at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills.

It’s that simple for Cox who was facing tough times before her breakthrough on TV’s Orange is the New Black in 2013.

‘I was standing in housing court in New York City with an eviction notice from my apartment, and I’m happy to have a job,’ she said.

Cox, who also stars in Fox’s Rocky Horror Picture Show remake this fall, is the first transgender performer to be a regular on a network series as a transgender character.

On Doubt, Cox plays an Ivy League-educated attorney named Cameron Wirth and stars with Katherine Heigl and Steven Pasquale, among others.

‘What’s exciting about (the character) Cameron and being on CBS is that I’m an avid TV watcher,’ Cox said. ‘A lot of people in my community watch TV and there weren’t people like me when I was growing up.’

Cox has achieved a series of firsts over the past three years.

She is the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the acting category for her performance in OITNB as Sophia Burset, a trans woman sent to prison for credit-card fraud.

She is also the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine and the first openly transgender person to have a wax figure of herself at Madame Tussauds.