Laurence Fishburne Replacing William Petersen on CSI

William Petersen says he is leaving CSI after nine years with the show. Petersen plays the character Gil Grissom. Since the start of the show Petersen has been a producer, then an executive producer, and have been an integral part of the show’s success. Now he says he’d like to challenge himself as an actor by returning to the theater in Chicago:

"It’s ’CSI’ — they pay me a lot of money, and I don’t have to work very hard anymore. I’ve got it all figured out. And I just realized, God, as an artist, I’m going to atrophy. You do anything for nine years, it becomes somewhat rote. I didn’t want to be on the show because they were paying me money and I liked the money. I didn’t want to be on the show because it saved me from having to go look for other jobs. Just didn’t want it. It was too safe for me at this point. So I needed to try and break that, and the way to do that, for me, is the theater."

Laurence Fishburne will fill the spot Petersen vacates.