Leslie Odom Jr. credits CSI: Miami for its diverse casting

People

"It was my first job, my first job in entertainment," the Hamilton Tony winner and current star of One Night in Miami tells People of his nine-episode role as a lab technician on the CBS crime procedural between 2003 and 2006. CSI: Miami, he says, was one of the few shows back then that was open to diversity. "This was the same year Grey's Anatomy premiered, so just when Shonda Rhimes was becoming Shonda. Before Ava DuVernay, Donald Glover, Lena Waithe," he says. "They weren't on the scene yet. It was only shows like CSI that were, to their credit, diversifying their casts."