Eriq La Salle's directing is strongest with ensembles, where capable people need not be agreeable ones. We rate his attention to actors, though the uneven feature work gives us less confidence in his handling of pace.
Fi1m perspective
Peter Benton in ER (1994) does not make professional competence look especially friendly. La Salle's performance has an edge, set alongside Anthony Edwards's restraint and George Clooney's troublesome charm. We enjoyed his difficult company because he could be good at the work without becoming automatically likeable. The ensemble remains the programme's strength even when the crowded storytelling becomes tiring. That sensitivity to actors is also what we value in La Salle's directing.
His directing began with Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault (1996). He took on writing and acting duties as well as directing Crazy as Hell (2002), a psychological thriller whose erratic pacing and uneven editing and lighting expose a less assured filmmaker. We are less persuaded by that work than by his handling of television ensembles. In 2009 he directed an episode of ER in its final season, returning to a programme he knew from years in front of the camera.
The series he has directed also place limits on what can fairly be called his style. Law & Order (1990) is plainly made and well acted, but its confidence in the system becomes wearing. Once Upon a Time (2011) has an inviting premise and an able cast, then gets tangled in its plotting and solemn fairy-tale flashbacks; we recommend it chiefly to fantasy enthusiasts. Neither programme gives us reason to attribute its merits or weaknesses to one director. These are established formats, and working within them calls for judgement about what to preserve as much as what to change.
The longer commitment came with Chicago P.D., where he served as executive producer and director from 2016 to 2021, continuing his work with Wolf Entertainment. His experience as an actor is useful in handling those ensemble casts. On Call (2025), on which he directs, produces and acts, brings body-cam and dash-cam images into that procedural work. The rougher pictures offer a way of making the action feel less tidily staged, though they cannot do the actors' work for them. We would follow him into another crowded workplace, provided the people remain worth the attention.
Biography
Eriq La Salle is an American actor, director, writer and producer. Born Erik Ki La Salle on 23 July 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut, he trained at the Juilliard School and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1984. He began his career in theatre, including a Joseph Papp Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V, and appeared in daytime television series such as One Life to Live.
La Salle is known for his role as Darryl Jenks in the 1988 film Coming to America, as Frank in the 1990 film Jacob's Ladder, and as Dr Peter Benton in the NBC series ER (1994–2002; 2009), for which he received three NAACP Image Awards and Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Later film roles include One Hour Photo (2002) and Logan (2017). He has also directed episodes of series including Law & Order and Chicago P.D..
