‘Law & Order’: Tony Goldwyn Teases How Baxter’s New Romance Complicates Case

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We’re going to meet that mysterious Kate, played by Maggie Siff, in DA Baxter’s (Tony Goldwyn) life in the March 13 episode of Law & Order — and of course it’s going to get a bit messy.

In “Crossing Lines,” when an up-and-coming politician is found dead, Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) and Riley (Reid Scott) untangle the victim’s personal life to identify a suspect. Baxter recuses himself to help Price (Hugh Dancy) make the case. Below, Goldwyn explains why and previews the complications it brings to Baxter and Kate’s relationship.

We heard about Kate in the previous episode. So heading into this episode, what can you say about this relationship for Baxter? How’s it going?

Tony Goldwyn: Going into the episode, going great. At the end of the episode, not so great, unfortunately.

Yeah, this episode is definitely going to complicate things, and Baxter must recuse himself so Price can make the case. What can you preview?

There’s a murder and you get the feeling that Baxter has recently entered into a relationship. And when we meet the woman, Kate, that he’s involved with, you go, wow, this is really cool. This feels good. And she is a defense attorney who ends up becoming the defense counsel for the murder suspect for the defendant. And that really complicates things for Baxter and by extension, Nolan Price, and it gets a little messy in his relationship. I thought it was a really well done way. Fantastic actress, Maggie Siff, playing Kate.

Virginia Sherwood / NBC

Talk about working with Maggie. Had you worked together before? Because all I could find was a podcast series, Crowded Hours, and I’m assuming you recorded separately.

Yeah, yeah, we did the podcast. We did not meet on that even though we played husband and wife. So no, I just had admired Maggie’s work for years, and so I was super excited when she came on board and we had a great time. She’s fantastic. She’s really, really good.

How does Baxter feel about his personal life becoming as public as it does? Because he did say he wasn’t taking any questions about Kate previously.

Yeah, it’s tricky. I think Baxter’s a private guy. He’s gone through, well, we can assume a divorce or at least a separation from his wife who we met at the end of last season where things again blew up because of his commitment to his work. And so this is the first time we’ve had an inkling that Baxter is starting to date other people. He’s the boss, so he doesn’t particularly want to talk about his personal life with the people he works with, but in this episode, Maura Tierney‘s character teases him about his friend Kate. So she’s aware. But yeah, I just think he’s careful about that kind of thing.

How is he handling his professional and personal lives clashing like this?

It’s hard. I get the feeling or the audience certainly can see that Baxter, the women that he chooses to be involved with are very smart, accomplished, formidable women. And when you’re in the same game as the person you’re trying to have a relationship with, that can get very complicated and messy. And I feel sad for him because it’s hard to navigate that and it got in the way of his marriage and now it appears to be creating serious obstacles with this pretty cool woman who he’s involved with.

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You had that crossover to SVU. Is there any more coming up? I really like the Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Baxter dynamic.

Yeah, that’s another cool relationship [and] two people [with] good chemistry. I hope so. I look forward to us visiting each other, but can’t give you any specifics yet on that. But we all really enjoy it. So I hope that we get to see more of Benson and Baxter together.

What does Baxter think of Benson? She does not back down.

I think he likes it about her. I think he recognizes that in her. Benson’s got quite a formidable reputation as a cop and all that she has achieved. So I think Baxter’s been very impressed with her. And then when they meet, they just kind of click as people. I think there’s the kind of mutual respect that they seem to have for one another, which also can be — they don’t like pushing back on each other, which I know from Baxter’s point of view, he finds that very attractive.

Is there a possibility of seeing you over on Organized Crime?

I guess it’s a possibility. I did SVU earlier this season and so hopefully there’ll be more of that. It’s really fun to go visit the other shows, but I don’t know. I have nothing to report yet.

You had your Scandal co-star Katie Lowes guest on an episode earlier this season, but unfortunately you two didn’t share any scenes. I was disappointed about that.

I was too. We were so excited to have Katie on and I got to hang out with her and have dinner with her. But no, I was really hopeful that we would have scenes together, but that didn’t happen.

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