Chris Meloni Wondered if He Was Pigeonholed as Elliot Stabler in ‘Law & Order SVU’
Law & Order SVU was Chris Meloni’s longest stint on a television show. But the actor wondered if he’d been on SV U for so long, that he’d be forever known as Elliot Stabler.
Chris Meloni had concerns about being typecast after ‘Law & Order SVU’
Meloni had been playing Stabler for 12 years before his surprising departure from SVU in 2011. He’s had plenty of noticeable roles in his career, but his no-nonsense detective quickly became his most popular character. And although shooting SVU wasn’t always easy at times, Meloni shared that the pros always outweighed the cons.
“The job at times is beyond frustrating. And yet everyday, through the fans and their feedback, it makes it more than worthwhile,” Meloni once said according to WolfFilmsLawandOrder. “I’m doing all of this in New York, I’m one of the minority of employed actors.”
Meloni was also proud of SVU’s ability to tackle real world subject matter. However, he also wondered if his time on the show might’ve stunted his own career. But he felt he avoided this trap by taking a variety of roles after leaving the series. When his SVU days were over, Meloni went on to play a vampire in True Blood. He also went on to portray a military veteran in Man of Steel. Purposefully choosing roles that were different from Stabler helped keep his acting opportunities diverse.
“Even when I was doing the SVU gig, I always had the antenna up: Am I pigeonholed yet? Am I going to be this guy for the rest of my life? I always thought about that. I think because that was in the back of my mind, I kind of instinctively go for things that keep people off-base,” Meloni told Penthouse in 2013.
Chris Meloni felt this other iconic character left just as much of a mark on him as Elliot Stabler
Stabler wasn’t the only character who had a sizable impact on Meloni’s life. Before SVU, Meloni was known for playing Chris Keller on the HBO series Oz. Stabler couldn’t have been any different from Keller, who was a vicious criminal involved in an intense relationship with a prison inmate. Still, Meloni considered Keller a career-defining role that broke barriers.
“I think for the gay community, that was a character that was revolutionary,” Meloni once told Vulture. “He wasn’t the closeted, wink-wink gay character or gay sidekick. He wasn’t the effeminate-stereotype gay. This was a guy who was absolutely free with his sexuality, who had this kind of unabashedly here-I-am-motherf***er-what-about-it attitude. I think the gay community was like, ‘Oh finally, they’re not making us a sissy.’ And you know, God bless them, I think my gay fans have kind of stayed with me. Obviously, not all of them, everyone moves on, but I still get a lot of love and a lot of fond rememberances.”
Because of Keller’s innate freedom, Meloni held the character in as high esteem as he did his SVU role. Just for different reasons.
“It’s rare you’re allowed that place where you can project that type of character, because it can be unwatchable to people and it scares them. And Elliot Stabler, by virtue of his longevity. I lived with that character for 12 years. He had a lot of aspects of life to play with,” Meloni said in a 2020 interview with Backstage.
Chris Meloni once shared how Elliot Stabler changed after his surprising return
Meloni didn’t stay away from Stabler forever after his departure. He’d return a decade later to the Law & Order universe, headlining his own spin-off Organized Crime. He described the transition back to his role as seamless. At the same time, Meloni teased fans that Stabler wouldn’t be the same person he once was back years prior.
“So in the early days of Organized Crime, we kicked around some ideas and asked, ‘Where do we find Stabler?’ The truth of the matter is you find him 10 years later, 10 years older, and hopefully wiser, but he’s still just as human and having to deal with the issues of the day,” Meloni told Wolf Entertainment.
