Christopher Meloni Speaks Out About That Shocking ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Death

Christopher Meloni has embodied NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler within the world of NBC’s Law & Order for the better part of 25 years. Outside his iconic Emmy-nominated role, the 64-year-old’s career grew on the big and small screen with a wide-ranging resume including turns on Oz, Happy!, Underground, Bound, and even Harold & Kumar movies. 

The beloved Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order Organized Crime star’s work will be celebrated during the North Fork TV Festival as the 2025 Canopy Award honoree . Past recipients have included Marcia Gay Harden, Carrie Preston,  J. Smith-Cameron, Kelsey Grammer, Jeremy Sisto and more. 

Now in its 10th year, the event supports independent development and innovative voices around the world on June 17 and 18 at Sound View in New York’s Greenport. Others spotlighted are Breakout Performance Award winner Tramell Tillman (Severance) and Rising Star Award winner Summer I Turned Pretty Christopher Briney. 

Here Meloni opens up about being honored and shares his thoughts on the shocking developments for Stabler heading into the Season 5 finale of Law & Order: Organized Crime. 

You’re set to be honored at the North Fork TV Festival. What does receiving the Canopy Award mean to you? 

Christopher Meloni: It’s always nice to be recognized. It feels like…wow, you have been able to stay employed for a lot of years. I think there is a threshold, and they give you an award if you’re able to stick around long enough. Last man standing I guess [laughs]. 

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME — Pictured: Chris Meloni as Det. Elliot Stabler — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/PEACOCK)

This festival also provides a platform for independent filmmakers and others who may not get the opportunity to really showcase their work on a big scale otherwise. 

First of all, I think it’s a great tool for the community. To me, this is what community is about, which is you get people together through this forum. A two-day affair, beautiful setting, for the arts. It’s a way to connect industry either to fans or to people who are looking for how’s, what’s and why’s to get their foot in the industry or just learning more about it. It’s almost like an outreach program in a way. I look forward to these opportunities because it’s less of a salesmanship of a product and more of an artist meets whomever. People coming up through the industry, wanting to learn certain things or just fans. It’s always nice to connect with the people who keep me employed. 

How would you describe the television landscape today compared to when you were starting out? It has endured so much in recent years including COVID, strikes. There are popular shows still getting canceled because of various factors. Yet Law & Order and others like it have managed to thrive. 

When I was starting out, there were three channels and one up-and-comer called Fox that really had The Simpsons, this edgy cartoon. That was the landscape. Now it has morphed into a totally different animal through all the streaming and how people get their entertainment. It has completely changed and is evolving. There have never been greater opportunities, but the landscape hasn’t settled. It’s a brave new world. I think there is a lot of evolution and creative destruction to happen. It’s also very international. It’s also very fragmented. Everything used to emanate from Hollywood, and that was that. Things are not being shot there like they used to be. It has changed, but that’s life. It just keeps morphing. 

That’s why it’s great to have different avenues such as this to keep motivating and inspiring others to show what’s possible to break through. 

Everyone is always looking for a good story. I think how we’re telling stories is really interesting and complicated. Far more interesting and complicated than they’ve ever been. There are a lot of platforms to land these creative stories. It’s very interesting. 

You’ve managed to dig into this character in Stabler for so long, which is rare. How do you reflect on this longevity? 

It’s very interesting to play a character and then go away from him and do other things and then come back in a little bit of a different world, a darker world, edgier world with Organized Crime. He was introduced in SVU. I guess there is something appealing about a flawed hero. It feels like it has made New York my home. It has made New York my own personal small hometown. That’s the best feeling in the world. I fell in love with the city as soon as I got to New York.  A full 16 years before I got Elliot Stabler. It just solidified my relationship with the city. 

LAW & ORDER: OC — Christopher Meloni as Stabler, Mariska Hargitay as Captain Olivia Benson — (Photo: Eric Liebowitz/NBC)

You mentioned Organized Crime, which can be gritty as you alluded. The recent example being Stabler’s brother Joe Jr. (Michael Trotter) being killed. What was your reaction to that and how Stabler deals with that leading into the finale? This seems to take him down a darker path. 

Yeah. I’m always legitimately sad when someone I know as a character dies. As a friend and actor, it’s someone who lost a job. At the same time, to play those emotions was very, it was distressing. Any time you can go into dark, messy, complicated emotional spaces, that’s why we signed up for the job underneath it all. The chance of, can you pull it off? Where are you going with it? How are you going to do it? What is it you’re doing to explore those emotions? That’s what makes it fun and challenging. 

What can you tell us about Season 6 in terms of possible details, episodes, storylines or maybe how the finale sets up for what would be to come? 

That’s a question that is unanswerable simply because I don’t think anybody including Peacock knows exactly what they’re going to do just yet. 

Do you have any hopes what the potential next season would be from a creative standpoint? 

I hope it’s something that pushes the boundaries, provocative storytelling in this crime-family drama. I hope all the actors that surround me have a larger slice of the pie because I think ensemble pieces appeal to me. I think there is more room to tell stories in the dynamic and relationships. I feel we did it this year. We took advantage of the Peacock platform, which allows for a little more elbow room for storytelling. I hope we continue that trend. 

Syfy

Beyond this Law & Order, you have a prolific body of work. Was there a show you wish you could have been on longer because of the set, people you were working with or the character you played? 

It is usually all of the above. I would say it would be Veep, Nick Sax in Happy!. I also did a comedy in England called Maxxx. I wish that had gone another go round. I just love [Armando] Iannucci, the showrunner of Veep and adore Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her cohorts. It’s just such a great set to work on. It’s easy and collaborative and free-flowing. Just a great environment to experiment with the comedy riffs. Happy!, I wanted to close out the storyline. We got two seasons out of that. We wanted to end up having the next season occur during Halloween. The first season was about Christmas. The second was about Easter. It was just balls to the wall insanity. I loved inhabiting the insanity of that world Brian Taylor, the showrunner and Patrick MacManus invented. 

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'Law & Order: Organized Crime' Just Killed off a Stabler

We’re in Pride Month, and this makes me think of one of your past roles in Bound. What do you remember about working on that project and how it has become this breakthrough cult classic? 

I remember those murmurings when it first came out. Like you have to watch this. It’s always great to be part of something groundbreaking. I realized this is groundbreaking because of the lesbian aspect and they are the heroes in this film and bad asses. I got that. The other part of it was The Wachowskis, [directors], I knew were visionaries. I kind of knew that was happening. That’s how it felt to me. It’s always nice to know that there is this representation in a way that appeals. It was nice to have a small part in that. 

The North Fork TV Festival runs June 17 and 18. For a full schedule, program lineup and how to attend, visit the event site. 

Law & Order: Organized Crime, Season 5 Finale, Thursday, June 12, Peacock