Legal Brief
Though Dianne Wiest has never not been good in something, the two-time Oscar winner doesn't think much of her performance as D.A. Nora Lewin from 2000 to 2002. It was close to home for the longtime New Yorker but other than that… "It was a great show but not the type of thing I'm any good at," she told the Kansas City Star in 2016. "I was really bad. I was just totally miserable and asked to leave, and they were happy to get rid of me."
The DA From D.C.
Lawyer-turned-actor-turned-politician-and-back-again Fred Dalton Thompson was still serving out the final months of his term in the U.S. Senate, where he had represented Tennessee since 1994, when he joined Law & Order as District Attorney Arthur Branch in 2002, staying for five seasons.
What You See Is What You Get
Elisabeth Röhm, who played A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn for three and a half seasons, said she felt her altruistic, at times a little naïve (but still sharp) character reflected her own values. "In my heart there's this belief that people are good, not that people who do bad things aren't bad, but that the spirit of human beings in general—that there's hope for us," the actress told the Long Island Weekly in May. "I think that Serena had that idealism and I do too."
The idealism, at least, may have been her undoing, Branch disagreeing with Southerlyn's approach to a case and firing her. To which her memorable reply, out of nowhere, was "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" The answer was no, but it was a head-scratcher because Serena's personal life had never come up. (It ranked 25th on TV Land's Top 100 Most Unexpected Moments in TV History.)
Let's just say, Röhm's time on set ("my colleagues were Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston, I mean, those are real actors") sounds more enjoyable than Southerlyn's time in the DA's Office.
"On my last day of work, Sam Waterston wrote a speech," recalled Röhm, whose recent work includes Jane the Virgin and Bombshell. "He said, I came into Law & Order with a 'blow torch of happiness,' and I have a child-like enthusiasm for life. I like to have fun. I like to treat people kindly. I want to make an impact. I want to make a difference."
She continued, "And I think that I do have that child-like enthusiasm and idealism, and belief in humanity. I'm never surprised when people are kind because I know inside of us is all this hope and desire to evolve and to be happy. That doesn't mean that there aren't criminal minds, degradation, despair, poverty and violence."
Green Streets
After nine seasons, Jesse L. Martin decided he had had a good run as Detective Ed Green—and though he was done walking the beat, he wanted Green to keep running.
"I don't wanna die, to be honest," the actor, whose other iconic claim to fame was originating the role of Collins in Rent, told EW.com in February 2008 as his final episode approached. "I really don't. I don't wanna die. I like the possibility of maybe returning for some reason. It'd be nice to have, like, a mysterious exit. But of course, none of this is up to me. They can end it the way they see fit."
Asked if he'd have any input on his character's fate, he said, "I don't know. I mean, I'm sure they'll listen to me, but ultimately, it's their show. They can make it do what it wants to do. I just hope it's a cool exit. I really do."
Well, Green lives! He turned in his badge after shooting a gambler and, despite being cleared by Internal Affairs (an investigation led by Martin's incoming replacement, Anthony Anderson's Detective Kevin Bernard), he decides it's time to go. They did not end up finding a reason for him to return, but Martin moved on, and is now a star of The Flash on CW.
Ripped From the Headlines
The stories may have been fiction, but sometimes the gas was real.
"I don't know what I had for lunch that day, but I had the bubble guts," Anthony Anderson, who played Det. Kevin Bernard for the show's final three seasons, shared on Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2016. "I was holding it in this entire scene, like a five-minute scene, and I held it in. And as I left the room, I left something in the room. And Jeremy Sisto was coming in to do his part of the scene—this was all on camera—and you could see S. Epatha Merkerson [making a "what's that smell?" face], and it started to just burn! And she was like, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute! Cut! Which one of y'all motherf--kers farted?! That is some nasty s--t, which one of you motherf--kers did this?!'"
Anderson continued, turning to the camera, "So, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jeremy Sisto, I would like to apologize to you both; one, Epatha, for letting that go in the scene, and Jeremy, for letting and allowing you to take the blame for that." He noted that Sisto "was a stand-up partner, he did not snitch."
A Little Clueless
When Anderson got the good news that he'd be coming onboard as Jesse L. Martin's replacement, Detective Ed Green exiting stage left after nine seasons, the Black-ish star soon found out he had a built-in audience.
"I told Magic Johnson that I was replacing Jesse on Law & Order and he was like, 'Yo, Anthony, you don't understand! This is my show!'" Anderson told the New York Daily News in 2008, "and he proceeded to run down every network and every time that he watches it—TBS to TNT to NBC. Steve Harvey's a friend of mine, too, and he had no idea I was on the show. When I told him I was out here working on Law & Order, his mouth just dropped. He said, 'I don't watch TV, but I watch Law & Order.'"
But not everybody was watching. On Rachael Ray in January (after the host said that she always cranked up the L&O while she was writing, calling it an "old friend"), Sisto admitted he had never seen the show before he was called in for a guest appearance in 2007—and he showed up thinking he was being asked to play a different lawyer.
"So I'd never seen it, and I show up and I'm learning all my scenes," the actor recalled as Ray looked appropriately startled by the revelation. "And I looked at the script. I was like, 'oh, kind of a cool character, my name's McCoy or something.' I get there and Sam Waterston's there, in the thing with me as we're going. We're starting to read the scenes and he's reading my lines…Yeah, I prepared the wrong character, the lead of the show."
But they liked him enough to cast him in 2008 as Green's partner, Detective Cyrus Lupo—and they even gave him a law school background. And Sisto is still in the universe to this day, playing Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jubal Valentine on the Wolf- and Craig Turk-created FBI.
Return of the King
Not surprisingly, fans and colleagues alike love Waterston, and they welcomed Jack McCoy back with open arms when he popped up on Law & Order: SVU in 2018, his first time slipping on one of Jack's rumpled suits since 2010. The guest appearance reunited him with then-new SVU showrunner Michael Chernuchin, who worked on the original in the 1990s and helped create the McCoy character—and was instrumental in getting Waterston, who's since starred on The Newsroom and Grace and Frankie, to return. "I knew him well; I know he's a wonderful writer, and so it was really easy to say yes," the actor told The Hollywood Reporter.
"At first, for about a half a day it was completely strange and wonderful, like stepping back in time, and then it was just very familiar," Waterston said. "It suddenly became like I'd never left." And, "I can't tell you how wonderful she [SVU star Mariska Hargitay] was; how welcoming, how generous. They treated me like visiting royalty, all of them did. But she was at the front of that; she was the leader of that and it was just a delightful time."