Law & Order: SVU Boss Warren Leight on Stabler Regrets, Benson Changes and a Final Word to Fans

After more than 100 episodes, Leight is leaving the series

By Chris Harnick May 26, 2016 1:37 PMTags
Law & Order: Special Victims UnitWill Hart/NBC

Leight's out on Law & Order: SVU. Warren Leight that is. The Tony-winning writer and executive producer ended his tenure on the NBC police drama with the season 17 finale "Heartfelt Passages." A particularly fitting name for his final episode that featured the elite squad of detectives losing one of their own—a first in 17 seasons.

Under Leight, Law & Order: SVU underwent a shift, partially at of necessity as Christopher Meloni exited between seasons 12 and Leight's first, season 13. The series started focusing more on Mariska Hargitay's Olivia Benson, her rise to power in the squad room and for the first time in more than a decade, the character had a personal life that wasn't depicted as Benson getting called to work while out on a date.

E! News was on set for Leight's final episode, he's leaving for a new deal with Sony, and he opened up about the changes, his regrets, what he's learned and what's next. For more on Leight's legacy from Hargitay and other cast members, check out E! News' previous story.

You definitely did some conversation starting stuff.
We went after a lot of institutions that had problems.

Like the Catholic Church.
Boy. Two things I've learned: Don't go after the NFL or the Catholic Church if you want an "Atta boy" from the network.

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NBC

Which was worse?
Those are perhaps two of the most powerful groups out there. While the NFL was talking about how they were interested in championing victims of domestic violence, pressure was being applied for us not to do an episode about domestic violence. The Catholic Church, while they said they're going after predators, made their opinions clear. I wish in both cases those organizations were as quick on the draw against domestic violence or against predators in their midst as they are about bad publicity about those things. What their exceptionally good at is keeping on top of anything that makes them look bad. That was interesting, but I will say to NBC and Dick [Wolf's] credit, we always got to tell the stories we wanted to. I don't see a lot of shows on networks telling those stories.

Do you have any regrets that come to mind? Something you wish you had done/not done?
I wish I had been able to…hm. Again, the audience deserved an arc out for Stabler. That should have been understood by everyone involved, instead I kind of walked in and he was just gone…A little out of my hands, but there's still continued ill will about it and that's unfortunate. I wish we had signed Donal Logue up. We were falling in love with him and he was falling in love with the show and he got offered Gotham and we were not yet picked up at that point, so I couldn't guarantee him a job. So, he did the pilot and we were hoping that would fail. He was great to work with. But, mostly, considering it's 117 of these, I think our batting average was very good. The ultimate goal for a show like this is to inform, to try to be real and try to survive. On a personal level, I'm very glad that six years later the show will keep going for the crew and the cast, they deserve it.

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Will you miss these awful stories in a way?
I'll miss writing about things that matter. I don't know what I go to next. We really got to tackle issues and I like doing that. I won't miss my Sunday morning email box filling up with horrible crimes that my writers, crew members and in-laws have sent me. I won't miss that, I could use a break from the graphic details of  horrible assaults all over the world. [Laughs.]

What's the hardest part of saying goodbye?
Oh it's the people here. The show used to be written in Los Angeles and produced here. I don't work that way…We're all pretty close and it is a very collaborative, intelligent, hard-working, dedicated group of people and that's tough to walk away from. That's the hardest part of it. The other parts? OK. Wondering what my lead-in will be this week? [Laughs.]

If you go to streaming you won't have to worry about ratings.
Streaming is funny because I guess that's one very probable option now. I think it would be strange not to worry about ratings.

You can still worry about SVU's.
How do you know the show exists? I've been so trained—‘How did we do? What can I do to push it next week?' ‘Cause when a show is as long in the tooth as this was when I got here, the network's not going to push it. I've sat here for five years watching them push dozens of other shows while we had to create our own buzz. Oddly the benign neglect kind of worked…It worked with Fire and PD. I won't miss my lead in envy, envying other show's lead-ins or promotional envy, that kind of thing. Interestingly, we're still here and a lot of the show's I envied are not.

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Will Hart/NBC

Do you have a final word on Tucker and Benson?
I'm eager to see where it goes. I think it's an adult relationship. I don't think her other romances played out as well as I'd maybe wanted them to. She's at a different stage of her life. I know there are still people who can't let go of what he did, but she can. It was also an organic thing, the more we saw those two together—

I think it's a testament to the character growth.
It was a black and white character thing before…He's a real man. There's a lot of man-boys that we've had in various incarnations. I think he's the real deal and solid as a rock. He's a human being who has learned some lessons too. Again, we've gone more from a black and white conception of Tucker to [shades of gray.] That's part of the way how the show has changed. On what planet does someone as appealing as Olivia Benson not have a spouse in her life?

Do you have a favorite change that you made with Benson?
I liked promoting her. We looked around the squad room, we kept saying after Donal left, ‘Who can we bring in? Who can we bring in?' And it's like, ‘She knows more than anyone who you're going to bring in. Give her the job.' I did that a lot internally. A lot of the staff assistants became writers. At a certain point, people are ready. I like that we have a woman boss, running the department, who is capable of both empathy and being a badass. I think it's real interesting. It used to be split…and she runs that division very competently and she can still sit down with a victim and get her to a different place. I'm also glad about baby Noah, but that we empowered her—she was already empowered—we just acknowledged it.

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Final message for fans?
"Thank you" is the final message to them. It's been great. I broke in in theater where you can feel the audience's reaction instantly and I didn't like when I was at Criminal Intent and an episode would air and it was a void. You could go into a forum or something. So I've loved the interaction with 95 percent of the people. Every once in a while when you're in a bad mood you can get angry at some of the others, but I know how much the show means to them and I know how much their support has kept the show on. My final word is just "Thanks."

Law & Order: SVU returns Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on NBC.

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