Morris Chestnut Lorraine Toussaint Split - H 2015
Courtesy of FOXLorraine Toussaint has no issues playing parent to an actor just nine years her junior.
The 55-year-old actress, who stars as mom to Morris Chestnut‘s titular character in Fox fall drama Rosewood, was called out early during the series’ Thursday Television Critics Association panel for not being old enough for the role.
“Did you get that from IMDB or Wikipedia?” she asked when one reporter called out the age gap between her and Chestnut (46). Clearly not fazed by anybody knowing her age, the actress offered up that familiar, fitting idiom: “Black don’t crack.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any problems buying that I’m his mother,” she summed up, adding that the eventual casting of Rosewood’s father will probably be an actor senior to her.
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She may not be top-billed in the cast, but Toussaint did seem to steal the Rosewood panel. Coming off of stints on Orange Is the New Black and Forever and a role in Ava DuVernay‘s Selma, she’s also been hard to avoid.
When the cast was asked if they’d witnessed any medical exams — the show is a procedural about a for-hire pathologist — it was Toussaint who chimed in with a story about her time sitting in on an autopsy.
“The hardest part of the first hour was getting my body to stay there,” she said. “Then it got interesting…. It was very life-affirming.”
Wrapping the panel, she also championed creator Todd Harthan for carrying the diverse casting — Chestnut joked they were endorsing the United Colors of Benetton — into the writers’ room. “They’re black, white, Latino, straight, gay,” Toussaint said. “He’s really gotten that right.”
