Five questions with Kelli Giddish [eng]
1 Law & Order: SVU has been on the air since 1999. Why do you think it’s still going strong?
It’s sad to say, but there’s so much bad stuff happening out there that we’ll never run out of material. But also, people love these characters. Like, you know exactly what’s going to come out of Ice-T’s mouth [as Detective Fin Tutuola]. You’ve been watching him for 14 seasons, you know? But you still can’t wait to see it.
2 Do the dark story lines, which routinely involve sexually depraved criminals, ever get to you?
My dreams were so screwed up when I first started working on SVU. I dreamed that I got chloroformed and got thrown in the back of a pickup truck. Waking up from that, I was like, “OK, that was different!”
3 How are you able to embrace story lines that give you nightmares?
At least those nightmares never really happened to me. But they have to a lot of people — and it means a lot to them to be able to talk about these things. So as hard as it is to deal with, at least we’re shining a light on it. It’s good being on the show that rips from the headlines and explores these things in a fictitious way.
Altra intervista a Warren Leight: “season of suspicion and a ’50 Shades’-inspired ep” [eng]
If May’s season finale of Law & Order: SVU was meant to send a message, it was received loud-and-clear. The shocking cliffhanger (a dead hooker in the bed of Dann Florek’s Captain Cragen) was a drastic departure for the long-running procedural. Viewers can thank showrunner Warren Leight for this dramatic turn of events. Leight stepped into the show amidst its biggest shake-up ever: Christopher Meloni’s highly publicized departure after 12 years. “Any show on this long would have needed to change, some rejuvenation,” affirms Leight, “and [Chris] leaving, in a way, opened up a lot of new possibilities. The thing that you worry about most is the thing that often works in your favor.”
Heading into season 14, which premieres tonight. SVU has some momentum to maintain. Leight is confident that introducing some new faces (Paget Brewster, Adam Baldwin) and dynamics (key word: suspicion) will be just the trick. If the show’s performance as NBC’s highest-rated drama finale last season is any indication, he may be on to something. Read what Leight has in store for SVU‘s double-barrel opener below, plus see how a certain ultra-popular erotic novel makes its way onto the show.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve been very conscious that SVU is the last Law & Order show on the air. With a year under your belt and a season underway, how is SVU 2.0 shaping up?
WARREN LEIGHT: This year, I’ve made some changes in the writing staff, the producing staff. Everyone understands what the goal is for this year. … So, just in terms of the way we run the show, people are a little more on. I know who my actors are, they know who I am. It’s easier to write for people when you knew what their strengths are. I know everyone’s strengths, and now what I want to do a bit of this year is make some of the actors feel a little bit uncomfortable, push them out of their comfort zone. Last year I had to learn their comfort zone so this year I can tear them down. [Laughs]
You said everyone on the writing/producing staff had the same goal in mind. What is that goal?
I don’t want anyone to look at this show 14 years in and go, “Oh, this is tired,” or “They’re going through the motions.” I want people to go, “This is as fresh as anything that’s on right now.”
Certainly, the end of last season was a big departure with the Cragen cliffhanger…
I wanted a cliffhanger, and that was definitely not part of the [creator and former showrunner] Dick Wolf culture. It was outside what people expect for the show. A little bit, I want to shake up expectations. There will be more storylines about our lead characters, a little bit more emotion between them. I would like to see more of the interpersonal dynamic between our detectives. There’s obviously going to be a big investigation after the dead hooker is found in Cragen’s bed, and there’s going to be a lot of fallout from that investigation.
Intervista a Warren Leight sulla Season 14 – “Tutti hanno dei segreti” [eng]
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit kicks off its 14th season by asking what once may have been an unthinkable question: Is Capt. Cragen a murderer?
“He should have not put that dead hooker in his bed,” executive producer Warren Leight says of last season’s cliff-hanger with a laugh. “Even if we know Capt. Cragen, it’s just never good to wake up with a dead hooker in your bed. That means you did something wrong.”
But did he? While Cragen (Dann Florek) comes under investigation, Detective Benson (Mariska Hargitay) will work furiously to prove his innocence, even though she has a new temporary captain (guest star Adam Baldwin) breathing down her neck. As Benson gets closer to the truth, she’ll learn what Leight says is a theme for the season: Everybody has secrets.
Read on to find out how quickly Cragen’s legal woes will be wrapped up, whether or not Detective Amaro (Danny Pino) can hold his marriage together, and why Law & Order: Criminal Intent’s Kathryn Erbe will pay the SVU squad a visit this season. Plus: Will we finally meet Munch’s mother?
You’re coming back from a very big cliff-hanger. How challenging was that?
Warren Leight: I enjoyed ending the season that way. And then we got lucky because NBC said they wanted us to do two hours [on premiere night]. They didn’t necessarily mean a two-parter. That’s a big departure for Law & Order to have a three-part story spread out over three episodes. It required a little bit of persuasion, but essentially we have a movie that we shot over the course of 24 days. There are high stakes. Not only is there a dead hooker in Cragen’s bed, but obviously there’s a lot of tension between Amaro and Benson. We kept a lot of plates spinning and it was just a thrill to get to work in a longer form, For Dann Florek I don’t think it was too much fun. I think he prefers a tailored suit to an orange jumpsuit.
You could have presumably brought any of the SVU detectives under suspicion as last season’s big twist. Why Cragen?
Leight: He’s the father figure. You think he’s the last guy that would happen to, but he has his demons. We believe he has them under control. He was by far the most interesting character to involve, and if it’s a frame-up, he would be a good guy to frame. There was that weird little episode, “Russian Brides,” where he went on that date. We saw a side of him we haven’t seen before. One of the things you could take away from that scene is underneath his character’s stoicism is some loneliness. And loneliness can lead people to make bad decisions.
Will Cragen’s case be resolved in the premiere, or will it take some time?
Leight: Some things are resolved, but there are long-lasting repercussions. It’s not Homeland. I admire and I envy their schedule, but I can’t drag it out for 23 episodes. What we’re trying to do is maintain continuity from one episode to the next. Episodes can be freestanding, but if Amaro and Benson have a tough time in one episode, it’s not like the next episode it didn’t happen. So we have a lot more continuity, a lot of story lines spilling over.
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Mariska – Open-Minded About More ‘Law & Order: SVU’
Mariska Hargitay said she’s open-minded about sticking around for more seasons of ‘Law & Order: SVU.’
When asked if Season 13 (premieres Wed., Sept. 21, 10PM ET on NBC) would be her last, Hargitay said, “I’m going into this with a completely open mind.”
“What I’ve learned is you don’t know what the future brings and everything is new,” she said. “Everything is fresh.”
E noi speriamo che sia così. La partenza di Meloni ha lasciato orfani noi fans, anche se i nuovi personaggi sono sicura che saranno abbastanza in gamba da attenuare il dolore, ma è bello sapere che Mariska ha ancora così tanta fiducia nello show e non ha intenzione di abbandonarlo.
“The show was a well-oiled machine, it took a lot of years to get where we were,” she said. “I think we’re in a pretty great place … we grew into a team — and still are a team — and have these incredible, talented new teammates, but also it’s exciting to have fresh eyes on what has been. That’s exciting.”
“Everything is different about ‘SVU,’” Hargitay said. “The team is still in place, the chemistry is still in place and the desire to make it great is still in place.”