Gray Talent Group client Justin Cornwell flew to Los Angeles this week to start filming his co-starring role with Bill Paxton in “Training Day,” a Warner Bros. pilot for CBS.
In the TV version of “Training Day,” a “present day reimagining” of Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 feature that starred Ethan Hawke as the rookie cop and Denzel Washington as the crooked detective training him, LAPD cop Kyle Craig (Cornwell) is transferred to the Special Investigation Section where he’s assigned to take down rogue cop Frank Rourke (Paxton).
Gray Talent agent/business manager Zach Gray says the agency received a phone call last Sunday, March 13 from Warner Bros. executives informing the agency of the studio’s choice of Cornwell for the leading role.
Cornwell has been a Gray Talent Group client since November, 2012, “when we signed him on his birthday,” notes Gray. A theatre-trained actor, he has had roles in “Empire,” “Chicago P.D.” and Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq.”
He is the third actor in Gray’s small group of exclusive talent to be cast in a starring role in LA-filming pilots and a series, so far this year.
Client Tyler Young co-stars in “Eyewitness,” an adaptation of a Norwegian crime thriller, an upcoming 10-episode USA Network drama series that went straight-to-series. It’s produced by Universal Cable Prods.
He also has appeared in “Empire” and “Chicago Fire” and had a recurring role in Disney’s TV series “The Avatars.”
Actress Mouzam Makkar, now residing in LA, also was signed for a lead role in CW’s new series, the thriller untitled “Mars Project,” from CBS TV Studios, about a team of explorers who arrive on Mars to join the first human colony on the planet only to discovered their predecessors have disappeared.
Makkar has appeared in “Chicago Fire” and “Betrayal” and “The Mob Doctor” series that filmed here earlier. Currently she has recurring role in “Vampire Diaries,” shooting in Atlanta.
In addition to its new TV stars, other Gray actors are series regulars Ethan Cutkosky, who plays Carl Gallagher on “Shameless;” Mike Kosinski about to start the second season of “Impastor,” shooting in Vancouver, and Alex Henderson is in the Common pilot, now titled “The Chi,” that filmed here last August.
Gray Talent, celebrating its eighth anniversary in September, exclusively represents a small number of actors, says Gray, “because we invest a lot of time in working with each individual performer.”
