Cress Williams, known for his titular role in ‘Black Lightning,’ made his screen debut in a recurring role as ‘Terence ‘Scooter’ Williams, beau of Queen Latifah’s character’ in the popular TV sitcom ‘Living Single’ (1993-1998). He also played a recurring role in the teen drama series ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ (1993-1994) and appeared as ‘Talak’talan’ in an episode of ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ (1994).
Williams appeared in several popular TV-series including ‘Hard Ball,’ ‘If Not for You,’ ‘NYPD Blue,’ ‘Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,’ ‘JAG,’ ‘Buddy Faro’ and others. He played recurring-role in drama-series ‘Leaving L.A.’ (1997) and was part of supporting cast in season 5-6 of medical drama-series ‘ER’ (1998-2008).
Williams’ first film appearance was in black-comedy thriller-film ‘The Doom Generation’ (1995), followed by small roles in crime-film ‘2 Days in the Valley’ (1996), and TV-films ‘Rolling Thunder’ (1996), ‘Home Invasion’ (1997), ‘L.A. Johns’ (1997) and more. He played ‘Det. Joe’ alongside Denzel Washington in supernatural-thriller-film ‘Fallen’ (1998), then appeared in romantic-comedy ‘Never Been Kissed’ (1999).
Williams played ‘Inspector Babcock’ in season-6 of ‘Nash Bridges’ (2000-2001), and ‘Dr. Magala’ in medical drama-series ‘Providence’ (2001-2002). After appearing in TV-series ‘Philly,’ ‘The District,’ ‘Touched by an Angel,’ ‘Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit,’ ‘House,’ and others, he played ‘Nathan Woods’ in teen-noir mystery-drama-series ‘Veronica Mars’ (2005-2006).
Williams was ‘Det. Williams’ in TV-series ‘Close to Home’ (2006-2007) and played ‘Tucker Jones’ in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (2006-2008) and ‘Ornette Howard’ in ‘Friday Night Lights’ (2010-2011). He appeared in as ‘assassin Wyatt Mathewson’ in drama-series ‘Prison Break’ (2008).
Williams was part of the main cast as ‘ex-NFL star, Mayor Lavon Hayes’ in comedy-drama series ‘Hart of Dixie’ (2011-2015), and part of recurring cast in espionage-thriller series ‘State of Affairs’ (2015) and medical-drama-series ‘Code Black’ (2015-2017).
In 2018, Williams was cast in title-role of ‘Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning’ in CW’s superhero drama-series ‘Black Lightning’ (2018-2021), and reprised the role in superhero-series ‘The Flash’ (2019-2021), and time-travel series ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ (2020).
The films he appeared in include TV-movies ‘Masquerade’ (2000) & ‘Couples’ (2002) , feature-films ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ (2001), comedy-drama ‘Little Black Book’ (2004), ‘Ball don’t Lie’ (2008), paranormal-romance-film ‘In Your Eyes’ (2014), and drama-film ‘Lowriders’ (2016). He provided voice of ‘John Henry Irons’ in animated-films ‘The Death of Superman’ (2018) and ‘Reign of the Superman’ (2019). His recent film appearances include drama-film ‘The Violent Heart’ (2020) and crime-drama-thriller ‘Crime Story’ (2021).
