Oscar-nominated "Hustle & Flow" star Terrence Howard has joined the cast of NBC's "Law & Order: Los Angeles," his representation at CAA has confirmed to TheWrap.
Howard will play a new deputy district attorney who will work alongside Deputy D.A. Morales (Alfred Molina) on the spin-off.
Howard and Molina will be rotating in order to split the prosecutorial workload, with each appearing in roughly half of the season's episodes so that both actors can stay active in the film world.
Skeet Ulrich and Corey Stoll ("Salt") have been cast as Detectives Rex Winters and TJ Jaruszalski, respectively.
"LOLA," as the show has come to be known, will take over the original "Law & Order's" timeslot of Wednesdays at 10 p.m., where it will be paired with "Law & Order: SVU." The hour-long crime drama will debut on Sept. 29.
Universal Media Studios is set to begin production on Aug. 2, as the series was ordered for NBC's fall schedule without a pilot.
Howard has plenty of TV experience, but his last role as a series regular was a supporting character on the second season of the short-lived Showtime series "Street Time."
He is currently filming the Winnie Mandela biopic "Winnie," in which he plays Nelson Mandela opposite Jennifer Hudson's title character. Howard has also wrapped his role as an Air Force colonel in the George Lucas-produced "Red Tails."
