Lorraine Toussaint kicks off Season 5 of The Equalizer this week on CBS alongside her TV Niece Queen Latifah and drops by to chat about her 40 year career of Stage, Film and TV including Any Day Now Co-starring Annie Potts, Orange is the New Black, plus she talks about how Juilliard gave her the training needed to create her own language for Into the Bandlands, and of course her return to the stage after 18 years in Hamlet at the Delacourt as part of Shakespeare in the Park Directed by Kenny Leon.

Also in this episode - Eila & Bruce take a field trip to the invited dress rehearsal of Maybe Happy Ending starring Darren Criss & Helen J Shen, Shirley MacLaine Oscar win for Terms of Endearment.

Lorraine Toussaint began her career in theatre, before supporting performances in films such as Breaking In (1989), Hudson Hawk (1991), and Dangerous Minds (1995). As lead actress, she is best known for her role as Rene Jackson in the critically acclaimed Lifetime television drama series Any Day Now, from 1998 to 2002, and her recurring role as defense attorney Shambala Green in the NBC legal drama Law & Order. She later appeared as a regular cast member in the NBC police procedural Crossing Jordan (2002–03) and the TNT crime drama Saving Grace (2007–10).

Toussaint received critical acclaim and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in the 2012 drama film Middle of Nowhere, written and directed by Ava DuVernay. In 2014, she played the role of Yvonne "Vee" Parker, the main antagonist in the second season of the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black, for which she received critical acclaim and a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She also played the role of Amelia Boynton Robinson in the 2014 historical drama film Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay. Toussaint later co-starred in the ABC fantasy-drama series Forever (2014–15), the Fox comedy-drama Rosewood (2015–17), the AMC drama Into the Badlands (2018–19), NBC drama The Village (2019) and CBS crime drama The Equalizer (2021–present). 

Make sure to check out Eila's book, "The Tony Awards", and all her other amazing books: https://amzn.to/43WMu5Y.

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