Cress Williams plays the title hero in The CW’s new DC Comics entry Black Lightning where he plays Jefferson Pierce, a popular high school principal serving his community while also protecting Freeland as a metahuman vigilante. The show airs Tuesday nights at 9PM following The Flash, and this week’s episode “Equinox: The Book of Fate” promises to be even bigger than the last installment which was a pretty big deal in itself.
The CW recently held a screening for this week’s show which was followed by a Q&A with Mr. Williams, who talked about what’s coming next regarding the recent revelations on the show: that his daughter, Anissa, has powers of her own; and that she now knows about her father’s super-powered alter ego.
“The cat’s out of the bag, and it’s kind of more along the lines of the parenting aspect; the fact that Jefferson knows the tough road of being a hero, and all that it entails, and he’s learned through the years that cooler heads prevail,” Williams told the journalists attending The CW’s screening. “And Anissa is anything but a cool head. And so, you’ll see how she is like ‘I’m ready to go!’ She’s ready to hit the streets. But she’s got so much to learn before that happens. As we progress along, it’s an interesting journey. You’ll be surprised as to who champions her training, and it’ll be surprising for Jefferson. Some of the aspect that make her such a good hero will be surprising for him, as well.”
The CW has already released a photo of Anissa (Nafessa Williams)’s “Thunder” costume which you can see to your right. In the comic books and an animated project, both of Jefferson’s daughters, Anissa and Jennifer, exhibit abilities as “Thunder” and “Lightning.” While not telling us when it will happen, Jennifer’s path to powers might go an alternate way.
“It will be different,” Williams teased. “It’ll be different because she comes at it from a different perspective. Even if you separate powers, you see that there’s a difference in personality types and what’s important to them, between Anissa and Jennifer. And so once powers are introduced into that, they also subsequently take different roads and have different reactions to it.”
Black Lightning airs Tuesdays at 9PM on The CW. See pictures from this week’s episode “Equinox: The Book of Fate” here!
