After over a decade of being off the air, the flagship and titular series of the Law & Order franchise is coming back.
Per NBC, the 21st season will “continue the classic bifurcated format that was created for its original run [and] once again examine the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.”
Shadow and Act exclusively spoke to stars from Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime on the red carpet at a press event in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood where they talked about how they felt about the mother show returning.
READ MORE:
‘Law & Order’ Stars Including Mariska Hargitay On The Cop Procedural During This Age: ‘We Don’t Want To Add To The Problem’
“[It’s] really great and historic,” said Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay. “And [I’m] grateful to be part of something and to sort of be that stepping stone toward it or a bridge toward it [the original series returning]. It’s an honor and a bridge and I am profoundly in awe of Dick Wolf’s vision of his ability to dream beyond the dream, if you will…to create what’s never been done, to dare to see that and have that kind of vision. There’s no ceiling, right? And it’s sort of how I think, which is…let’s keep going. And so it feels incredible to be on the team with Team Visionary.”
Hargitay’s SVU co-star Kelli Giddish teased the potential to have crossovers once again with the main series now that it is back, adding, “[It] feels right that it’s here and they get to continue and we get to see Sam Waterston. And, now we can like refer to him in our scripts and they can be more part of our world and our world kind of opens up as well, story-wise.”
Anthony Anderson reprises his role as Detective Kevin Bernard and Waterson is back in the iconic role of DA Jack McCoy. New characters are Jeffrey Donovan as Detective Frank Cosgrove, Camryn Manheim as Lt. Kate Dixon, Hugh Dancy as ADA Nolan Price and Odelta Halevi as ADA Samantha Maroun.
Halevi says she's been watching the show since viewing it with her mom as a child in the '90s back in Israel. Seeing this on television initially made her want to become a lawyer.
Seeing this on television initially made her want to become a lawyer. Now, she’s playing the ADA that its teaming up with Dancy.
“She really brings new ideas and new opinions and she’s a badass,” the actress explained. “She really challenges Nolan Price while still maintaining a sensibility of what’s right and what’s wrong. And she really has an interesting backstory in the first episode.”
Manheim teased the storylines to come in the return season.
“They’re just ripping things from the headlines,” she told us. “It’s very current it’s about a really lot of things that really matter, racism and me too movements and just relationships between, people who work together. There’s a lot of really interesting storylines. But I think it’s very current and people will be happy to see those stories reflected.”
Donovan also previewed newbie Cosgrove's relationship with Bernard, noting that they do get off to a not-so good start.
“[There’s] some good, good underlying tension between us,” he said. “You know, it was very intentional that you have a black detective and a white detective who are going after the same thing, which is get the bad guy and we have two different approaches and that’s going to be under a microscope. As it should be. In this day and age because maybe there are some things that Frank is just not aware of and he’s got to be kind of awakened. And, there’s some things that maybe Detective Bernard isn’t aware of that. So it’s going to be a great challenge and I’m looking forward to exploring it.”
The first episode of the 21st season of Law & Order premieres Thursday at 8 p.m.
