‘Law & Order’: Elisabeth Röhm Was Brought in Because Audiences Needed Someone Nice to Look At
Law & Order has featured a rotating roster of actors through its many years on air and various spin-offs. But actor Elisabeth Röhm joined Law & Order for the sake of eye candy.
‘Law & Order’ replaced Angie Harmon with Elisabeth Röhm
Law & Order fans fondly remember Angie Harmon’s character Abbie Carmichael on the show. The actor portrayed the young ADA from seasons 9–11 while also making a guest appearance on the spin-off SVU. As is the case with many actors, Harmon left the show to pursue other career opportunities.
“I left Law and Order because I really honestly did want to do movies and did want to be a movie star since I was a little girl,” Harmon once said, according to Cinema Confidential. “I loved the show. It just kind of got to the point where if the character can’t grow and do anything else… There has to become a point where I can’t constantly be saying to Jack McCoy, ‘Why don’t we do this, why don’t we don’t that,’ with the response of, ‘No, you idiot.’ You’ve been here for three years now; you should know that’s going to work.’ As an actor, you’re trying to stand up for the integrity of your character, and it’s hard.”
Law & Order would later recruit Elisabeth Röhm to replace Harmon. Röhm would play ADA Serena Southerlyn from seasons 12–15. The show’s casting directors admitted that the star’s looks factored heavily into her casting. They emphasized hiring someone who was attractive enough to stand out from the rest of the series’ cast.
“The looks really matter because, let’s face it, there’s really no one else to look at on the show,” a casting director once told Entertainment Weekly.
It was noted that it was creator Dick Wolf’s strategy to hire young actors in or approaching their 30s to play the ADAs. And it worked better if the actors weren’t that well known.
“In a way, it’s better to get a lesser marquee name because it’s the show itself that is actually the star,” the casting director added.
Why Elisabeth Röhm left ‘Law & Order’
Rohm’s reasons for leaving Law & Order weren’t too different from Harmon’s. Like her predecessor, Röhm had a taste of what the movie industry had to offer. With her character’s potential for growth shrinking, she decided to explore other career challenges.
“I traveled and I shot a film this summer, and it opened my eyes to something beyond what’s comfortable, and I realized that I didn’t have anything else that I could offer this character,” she once said in an interview with Told (via Express).
However, the Angel star would return years later to Law & Order in the form of a director. She shot the 2022 episode “Only the Lonely,” and she was more than happy to give back to her career-launching series.
“It’s poetic to come back at this juncture of my life,” Röhm told The Wrap. “Dick Wolf gave me my first opportunity as an actress, and he gave me my first opportunity as an episodic director.”
Röhm spoke to Dick Wolf about returning to the series
Röhm didn’t entirely rule out reprising her role in the legal drama. She’s even had discussions about the possibility. But revisiting Southerlyn isn’t something that she’s currently interested in.
“We have discussed it. I’m really focused on directing right now. And I’d love nothing more than to continue directing Law & Order. And I certainly would be happy to reprise Serena Southerlyn, but that’s not in the works currently,” she said.
Röhm also theorized where Southerlyn might currently be in her own corner of the Law & Order universe.
“She would definitely be a lawyer or a politician,” Röhm said. “She genuinely believed in justice, and she believed that she could make the world a better place; she was incredibly idealistic, and sometimes, intellectually, she was not entirely up for the job, so to speak, because of her ideals. That’s what she and Jack would clash over. She couldn’t process sometimes why things weren’t working out, from the perspective of right versus wrong. The district attorney’s office is full of complexity, and it doesn’t always work out. I think that’s another thing Law & Order really reflects, that justice isn’t always served and it’s incredibly crushing.”
