Kelli Giddish Barely Kept It Together Filming Tough Story Lines in ‘Law & Order SVU’
Law & Order SVU has put its cast through some difficult episodes. Actors like Mariska Hargitay have been very candid in the past about how the show’s darker subject matter affected her. But Kelli Giddish might’ve been even more disturbed by certain episodes, especially ones involving children.
How Kelli Giddish dealt with the tougher episodes of ‘Law & Order SVU’
Giddish knew what she was signing up for when she was first cast in SVU. She’d already guest-starred on Law & Order SVU as another character four years prior to landing the role of Amanda Rollins. She even appeared in Wolf’s other spin-off Criminal Intent. But guest-starring on the show was much different than being a series-regular.
As detective Rollins, Giddish was consistently exposed to more than a few haunting crimes. Some of which could be hard to shake off when Giddish could relate to them personally.
“It hits a little closer to home when bad things happen to children,” Giddish once said according to Stuff. “There’s one episode we’ve just finished filming that very much deals with a child and I couldn’t keep it together the entire episode. It’s certainly concerning, but I do a very good job of not bring my stuff home very much.”
Giddish quipped that this was where her inability to multi-task might’ve actually come in handy.
“I can’t really do two things at once, ” Giddish said. “If I’m at work, I’m really, really all-consumed by work. If I’m at home, I don’t really think of work that much.”
At the same time, Giddish felt it was important for SVU to shed light on some of the heinous crimes that happen in real life. Many of the show’s episodes are inspired by real-life headlines that can help create awareness among the show’s audience.
“It means we’re exposing as many people to storylines like that as we can because it’s no use keeping it in the dark. It doesn’t do anybody any good if nobody ever talks about things like that,” she said.
Kelli Giddish felt Amanda Rollins’ gambling addiction was her release
Giddish’ Amanda Rollins dealt with her own personal demons throughout the series. The agent had a gambling problem in the show that affected her professional and personal relationships. But Rollins’ issues were what further attracted Giddish to the part.
“That’s something I enjoy playing,” she once said in an interview with Smashing. “It would be pretty boring if everything was easy-breezy. I’ve always told the head writers, ‘If you need to throw anybody under the bus, it better be me.’ I like going from a place where you have to crawl your way back up, you know? Being on top is not the fun part. To play a character as an actor, you want to get into going, ‘Aw, s***!’ Going from that place to going, ‘You know what? We’re good now.’”
But Giddish also felt the character’s gambling was a means for Rollins to cope with her line of work.
“I always see it as like a release. I know in interviews I get asked a lot, ‘You’re dealing with such heavy material. How is that?’ You do need some kind of release and that’s what that is for her,” she said.
Kelli Giddish’ thoughts on fan reaction to her replacing Chris Meloni
Giddish was brought on board the SVU team after Meloni’s unexpected departure from the procedural. The actor was well aware that her inclusion in the series at such a pivotal time might stir up fans. But she made it a point to avoid reading fan opinions to better focus on her work.
“That’s someone else’s job to count the beans. That’s not my concern,” she once told HuffPost. “The reason why I kind of felt like I could step away from that is because I have a lot of faith in the writers and in the initial conversations. I had a lot of faith in how they were handling introductions and that kind of thing. So I felt like I could just step back. And if the fans like me, then great and all hopes they would enjoy it, but they’re obviously going to miss Chris Meloni a lot. I wasn’t trying to step into his shoes.”
