Marie Claire; September 27, 2018
Isabel as Kathy Stabler during the car crash scene from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 9's Paternity
Now, as the series enters its 20th season-tying with Gunsmoke and the original Law & Order for longest-running drama series in TV history-the female cast and crew who have been key to its success share how it all came together. These are their stories. *DUN DUN*
Getting The Gig
Judy McCreary, co-executive producer: When executive producer Peter Jankowski reached out to me about SVU, I kept calling it “SUV.”
Isabel Gillies, Kathy Stabler: 20 years later, I still call it “SUV.” [Laughs] For New York actors, working on Law & Order is a little notch in your belt. I’d just finished an arc on the mothership when I went out for [detective Elliot] Stabler’s wife, Kathy. It wasn’t the biggest part, but I really felt it. I’m from New York, Kathy’s from New York. I told Dick Wolf, “You know, I’ve auditioned for you a lot. You should just give this to me.”
Power Couple
JMC: Dick had a rule: Every character must have a different point of view, and everybody has to be right. We always knew we were onto something when we started arguing with each other, with raised voices, in the writer’s room. His rule is why Benson and [detective Stabler, played by Christopher Meloni] worked so well as partners: Benson was so empathetic, and Stabler’s brutishness complemented that.
Karen Stern, editor: Their chemistry was so amazing.
Julie Martin, Executive Producer: So many people wanted them to get together.
IG: I couldn’t get into that. [Laughs] Stabler’s a nice, Catholic cop! I know some people don’t like Kathy, but she was just a woman who wanted to keep her family intact, and for her husband to be present. One thing that was interesting about Kathy and Elliot’s family is that it really did divert from the original premise of Law & Order, where you don’t know the back stories of any of these people, nor do you really care, because the main thing is the crime. But when I got the part, I was told it was very important for Stabler to have a family because of the nature of these crimes. So, I took my role very seriously, and I think it deepened the show. Our family was actually based off Dick Wolf’s family-one of our kids was named Dickie.
Behind the Camera
IG: The episode Paternity is the most fun I’ve ever had acting. Olivia and Kathy get into a car crash and Kathy goes into labor. They had to really crash the car-we were standing on a corner in Harlem, watching it and clutching each other. They cleaned out all the glass with this huge vacuum cleaner, then dumped in rubber glass. That’s when Mariska and I became really close-we crawled into this crumpled-up car for four days and shot these intense scenes. We fell completely in love.
The Guest Stars
Ellen Burstyn: I was very flattered when SVU wrote me the part of Stabler’s mother-nobody had ever written a part just for me before. She was a really interesting woman: she had bipolar disorder, but refused to take medication. I soon learned how common that is, because even though it saves you from terrible depression, it stops the ecstatic highs. I wasn’t surprised when I was nominated for an Emmy for playing her- winning, though, that was a surprise.
IG: I loved when Cynthia Nixon came on the show and held me at knifepoint. I knew Cynthia just from being an actor in New York and from Sex and the City- I’d actually been on that show before I was in Law & Order. She was playing a psychopath, a scientist-I remember being like, “Whoa, this is intense.”
When Meloni Left
IG: I found out he was leaving on the internet- and if Chris wasn’t there, I wasn’t there. It’s OK. As much as I loved our family, he was the star. Still, sometimes I feel like Kathy didn’t really get a chance to be a whole person. Sometimes I made up stuff in my head to fill her out. I always hoped people were pulling for her, but I never really knew.
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