The Equalizer star Tory Kittles on "Driving While Black" episode: “I knew it was going to hurt because it was very personal to me"

TVLine

Sunday's "D.W.B." episode featured a Black director (Solvan Naim) and Black writer (Joseph C. Wilson) as it tackled the issue of Driving While Black with Equalizer star Kittles, who plays an NYPD detective Marcus Dante on the CBS drama. “One of the best things about being an actor is you get to deal with real-life experiences without suffering the consequences,” Kittles tells TVLine. “Dante is very complex and we got to dig into that in this episode. Joe called me after last season and said he had an idea. My initial reaction was, ‘There’s no way in hell they’re going to let us do this.’ But after everyone heard Joe’s pitch and said yes, he wrote this incredible, multi-dimensional script, and I was as terrified as I was excited.” Wilson, a co-executive producer on The Equalizer, adds: “The goal was to open up Dante’s character in the shadow of George Floyd’s death and the Caron Nazario case, the Army officer who police pepper-sprayed at a gas station. All of these things are what we deal with as Black people in America everyday, and I wanted to combine those cases. It allowed us to really show who Dante is, what makes him tick, and the journey that he’s on — but also bring awareness to the fact that this is something that is not over.”