Petersen: TV Is A Two-Dimensional World

William Petersen (Gil Grissom) left CSI: Crime Scene Investigation behind during the show’s ninth season, and he doesn’t regret making the leap back to the stage.

Petersen was anxious to get back to the theatre when he decided to say goodbye to CSI. “I hadn’t been able to do any theatre for 10 years because of the show, and I thought, if I don’t do it, I’ll never do it,” he said. “I didn’t want to become afraid to do theatre.” Since returning to the stage in Chicago, he has done two plays: Dublin Carol with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Blackbird at the Victory Gardens Theater. “It’s a three-dimensional world in the theatre,” he explained. “TV is a two-dimensional world.”

Petersen is glad to be back on the stage, but he does miss his former CSI coworkers. He is still credited as an executive producer for the series, but that doesn’t mean he’s in charge. “If I was going to do that, I’d have stayed on the show,” he said. Instead, he only visits the set from time to time. “The show has to find its own legs, without those of us that have left.”

The show added film actor Laurence Fishburne as Dr Ray Langston when Grissom left the crime lab, but Petersen was careful not to give his opinion on the new team dynamics. “I try to stay out of [it],” he said. “I try to do what Grissom would do, which is not judge it.”

Petersen didn’t mind sharing his opinion of the prevalence of forensic dramas on television. “There’s gonna come a time where we’re gonna yearn for Angela Lansbury,” he said, referring to the actress’s famous role as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote from 1984 to 1996. “And we may be there.”

Now that he has left the forensic world of CSI behind, Petersen isn’t looking to return to TV any time soon—and thanks to his steady work on the series, he doesn’t have to worry about taking jobs for the paycheck. “I never did the TV show for money, money’s not the issue,” he said. “I have more money than I ever thought I’d have, and it takes a certain amount of stress off you. I can work at the Steppenwolf and I don’t have to worry about paying my bills.”