Luke Perry, Sara Gilbert and Neal Baer interview: Law & Order SVU premiere

NBC's Law & Order: SVU will see guest stars Luke Perry and Sara Gilbert appear in the NBC premiere season episode “Trials” airing September 23 at 10:00 pm. 06/08/2008 - Sara Gilbert - stars on Law & Order SVU premiere © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos

06/08/2008 - Sara Gilbert - stars on Law & Order SVU premiere © Chris Hatcher / PR PhotosThe episode concerns an abused foster child who leads Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to revisit a cold case involving a past rape victim, played by Sara Gilbert.After a young boy, Christopher Ryan (Jae Head), is caught driving a runaway van, Detective Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Detective Benson take the seven year-old into questioning. When Christopher claims his foster parents, Gwen and Noah Sibert (played by Julie Bowen and Luke Perry), bribe him in exchange for abusive medical testing, the detectives investigate his allegations. As Detective Benson continues to study the boy’s accusations, she is led back to a former unsolved rape case involving Kaitlyn Murphy (Gilbert). After reviewing both cases, Benson uncovers a common factor, and with help from new A.D.A Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus) she just might be able to solve the cases.

Cast: Chris Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Dann Florek, Richard Belzer, Ice T, Tamara Tunie, Michaela McManus, and B.D. Wong.Monsters and Critics participated in a conference call and spoke to Luke Perry, Sara Gilbert and Executive Producer, Dr. Neal BaerWhat was it about this particular story, this particular group of characters that made you want to do this show?Sara Gilbert: I’m a fan of the show and the writing and the actors. And so thatI was excited that they were interested in me to begin with.I always think it’s exciting when I get to play a dramatic character and something that I don’t always play. People know me more for comedy I think, so it’s always exciting to me when I get to play something so dramatic.Luke Perry: Yeah, and it was great for me to get to watch her do that because from what I know of Sara’s work we all think she has razor sharp timing, perfect delivery and those are the great tools in comedy.It was great for me to see that she’s also got a really deep bag of dramatic stuff that she can do, too. And that’s always exciting as an actor when you get to work with somebody and you get to see them do something completely different.Sara Gilbert: Yeah, I felt that way about Luke, too. It was like really great and exciting to get to…I’ve watching him growing up and it’s really fun to see what it’s like to work with somebody that you’ve only watched on television before.Neal Baer: You’ll cry when you see Sara and when you see Luke, and you’ll be shocked. So it’s really like seeing them both in really interesting roles that are unexpected and...Luke Perry: That’s what’s great about a show like Law & Order because it’s been around so long. Those guys have such a well-oiled machine.It’s great for people like me and Sara to come in and they give you - they have the confidence in you to let you try something completely different and completely new.

Sara Gilbert: Yeah and I felt like everyone was so helpful, too.
Not just the director but the writer and Marishka. Everybody was like there to support me and help me do what I needed to do.Luke Perry: Yeah, it’s not always like that is it?Sara Gilbert: No.This show goes to some pretty dark places. Does the subject matter ever wear on you? Neal Baer: Well I’m a pediatrician so I’ve seen just in my training a lot. But our show is also about the social issues so - and the psychological issues.So even though it’s intense, there’s heart to it. So for instance in Sara’s character she’s really suffering because she’s lost her child and she’s given him up.And so people can relate to that and so even though it may be psychologically challenging or dark, it’s not to me grim. It - and this does have some positive outcomes in this particular episode.Sara - what did you do to get into the head of your character?Sara Gilbert: I worked with my coach who I love, (Katelyn Adams), and then I also talked to a couple of rape victims to - and one in particular who had had post traumatic stress disorder to kind of figure out what that’s like.I guess she talked about a lot of numbness and stuff, so that really helped me understand how it’s hard to function and what happens. And then I just tried to think about losing the things that are most important to me.What would make me so disabled that I would start to lose the things in my life that mean something to me.

Luke, do you enjoy playing the bad guy?Luke Perry: Well I don’t see them as plainly bad, first of all. I mean nobody is bad all the time. Nobody sits around being bad 24/7. So there are always moments where you got to try to find the humanity to people who may be considered the bad guy.I thought this is one of the things about this particular script with Law & Order that as I read it, at first I saw it kind of in primary colors.The more I read it, the more I started to realize there was so much room in there for me to find places (the guy can pass) and likeable because in his mind he’s doing a good thing. I felt that my character on SVU is a really good father, a really great guy that loved his kid and wanted to see the best thing happen for him.Neal Baer: From what Luke just said what’s really interesting about his character is he’s a really good father.And that comes through. He really loves the kid and so it’s not just good guys, bad guys. It’s - and Sara’s character was a good mother and because of the circumstances is no longer a good mother.But one will hope that she becomes one. So it’s very complicated.Luke Perry: Yeah, and that’s like life. Life really is like that. It’s not all black and white. Sara Gilbert: And I agree with Luke. Like when you look at the great villains that we’ve seen and loved in TV and movies, you love to not like them and I think part of that is approaching it with like a dimensional kind of way - like that it’s not just that they’re all evil or we wouldn’t love them, and that’s part of the enjoyment of supposedly evil characters.Sara, your character, Kaitlyn - can you give a tease of how your character intersects with the seven year old boy, your storylines and maybe just give a little bit of foreshadowing on this particular episode?Sara Gilbert: Sure. My character is a rape victim and she is - has post traumatic stress disorder from the incident and to the point where she can’t really function anymore.And in order to, basically save her child she has to give him up. So then I end up seeing him again - I run into him when I come in to the station.Neal Baer: Sara’s character is just physically and emotionally a mess as you’ll see and Mariska’s character feels guilty because she didn’t remember at first taking on this case some years ago.Sara’s character is the impetus for Mariska to deal with really dark things in her own life. And so there are scenes with Mariska alone where she flashes back onto some very bad things that happened to her in previous episode when she is attacked.That kind of launched by this very intense scene she has with Sara where she goes to see Sara’s character and empathizes, and then later is kind of reliving her own attack.Luke Perry: I think that’s great because this show... they don’t just do victim of the week or bad guy of the week. All this stuff, like Neal just said, it comes back to inform their regular character and it really keeps that part of the engine of the show running.That’s how you get a show that stays on the show ten years. People care about all that stuff across the board. And they’re really smart the way they lay it out there.Neal, with your career and your work with pediatrics and adolescents, and what you do for a living, how do you personally feel about the possibility of having someone in a high political office that supports a ban on abortion even in cases of rape or incest?Neal Baer: Well I can only speak obviously personally. It worries me because any time you have a law or someone that has opinions that cover every situation all ways without dealing with the real tragedies that occur in obviously instances of rape or incest and what that means for the mother, the woman who is pregnant by the rapist or by - or through incest, it’s really troubling to me personally because it’s not something that I can imagine myself.And I can imagine it but it’s not something that I can even really fully feel or understand. And I wouldn’t want to make those kinds of judgments for someone who was in such a tragic situation.Luke - What do you look for in a guest starring role?Luke Perry: It has to be for me something that is absolutely different than anything else I’ve played and it needs to be on a show that knows what they’re doing. It’s really hard to - I haven’t done a lot of guesting.It’s hard to do it because you’re the new person in the room. You don’t always know what you can say and how you can say it, and when you can say it.A show like this where everyone is pretty secure in themselves, in their crafts and what the show is about, it’s great because they give you a lot of room to play. They give you a lot of room to move and they also took really good care of me the whole time I was there. So that was pretty good. I like that.In terms of mechanics, how easy is it to get into the role at the beginning of a day and how sort of hard is it to shake it off at the end of the night?Sara Gilbert: I find that it’s not easy to shake a role. I find that it really kind of sticks with you through the shooting.And whenever I read a script I’m kind of like, uh-oh this one is going to be a bummer in a few weeks or this will be easy just emotionally because it really - when you say words all day and go through situations it’s pretty powerful.Luke Perry: Yeah, the saying is true. Some characters you can just - literally I can just walk out of them at the end of the day, never think about it again and go home.Sara Gilbert: Yeah.Luke Perry: Some of the stuff that has a little more gravitas to it, it just - it does, there’s so many things especially with this show because it’s all happening right now and it’s all about stuff - it’s all very contemporary.So even after I’m done doing it, I walked away from it and for a couple weeks I still - things would happen and it would make me think about it. It would still be relevant in my mind.And once you’ve played a part, you put yourself in the position of the “bad guy” you start to see things a little bit differently. And it’s funny that Sara - I knew that was going to be your answer to this, Sara...Sara Gilbert: Yeah.Luke Perry: ...because I could tell just from the few days that we were together here you had like a weight on your shoulders every day at work.Sara Gilbert: Yeah, and I feel like, with some characters you can go to lunch and forget about it. Like you were saying, you kind of can go in and out and I think the heavier characters require like a discipline where you kind of keep yourself in it because otherwise you’re back from lunch and they’re like okay we’re rolling…and you’re just still eating your sandwich in your head, and it’s just not going to work.Both of your careers have been peppered with both comedy and dramatic roles. How does that work for your careers?Luke Perry: I think we always look for the good parts as actors and we don’t necessarily look for a good comedic part or we don’t necessarily look for a good dramatic part.What happens many times is you find parts that what you bring to that role really services it well. And you take sometimes - like in the instance of Sara. You take a good part and you make it a great part by the way that you execute it.On Roseanne she was written as like one of a number of children in this household. And two seasons into that show, Sara is the go-to girl for the funny because she’s just bang, right there with it.But as the actor you can’t really be that selective and try to do that. I just look for a good part and if it’s dramatic I’m happy with that. If there’s comedy in it, I’m happy with that too.Sara Gilbert: It’s funny how you can feel so suited for things that are so different. And it’s great. I mean, to me the thrill of acting is to have so many life experiences in one lifetime, .I love that and hopefully I pull it off and I’m having fun doing it. And it’s just like Luke said, you kind of just stay open to whatever seems good and do that project when it comes along.And as actors, there’s so many talented people that aren’t working so I think we’re just so lucky to get jobs.Luke Perry: True. Nobody is good by themselves. It’s always a group effort. It takes a whole cast and scene partners and stuff like that.Sara Gilbert: Yeah, it’s true. And just watching Luke when we were working I felt like it helped me really believe it…Did you seek out any advice from friends or colleagues who have done guest appearances on the show before? Sara Gilbert: I continued to reach out to Mariska because she’s there every week and she is like - she’s like a budding director as far as I’m concerned.
She’s just like so...Luke Perry: Yeah, that’s (not) too hard to see.Sara Gilbert: Yeah.Luke Perry: She’s right on the cusp, yeah.Sara Gilbert: Yeah, she’s great and the director of course was awesome but she definitely helped me. She’s so used to playing a dramatic part every week that she helped me with little shortcuts to get inside the character.Luke Perry: Yeah and I felt good going into this show because, you may ask your question. I’ve known Belzer forever it seems like and I worked with Chris on Oz and Ice and I had done something together.So I’d worked with some of these guys before and I felt that there would be some measure of comfort with that. Also at the same time, just because you come in and a few people doesn’t mean they’re going to cut you any slack.
You got to really pull your end of the rope, especially on a show like that. So thought it was a good opportunity for that.At some point do you guys just get tired talking about your old shows?Sara Gilbert: I just feel like I’m really honored to have been a part of Roseanne and I know that it’s going to be part of my life forever, I just have got to accept it and I’m proud of it. And I feel honored that I was chosen to be a part of it. Luke Perry: Yeah. I’ve had some time lately to think about that kind of stuff, too, Sara.And what I have determined is that stuff doesn’t happen by accident. We put a lot of hard work into it and so do a lot of writers and a lot of directors.And when shows take off and they sort of become part of the American psyche like that, there’s a time when it’s happening that you’re a little resentful for it because you had no idea it could possibly get that big.
But like Sara says, when you stop and you look at the whole of your life and the whole picture of it, from that perspective I’m very proud of it.It was a lot of fun and I think it gives you a neat relationship to the American public, I mean, it really does put you on a little bit of a closer basis with all kinds of people. And the world could use a little more of that.Sara, earlier you had mentioned that you were actually a fan of Law & Order prior to guesting on the show. What other kinds of shows are you guys fans of? Sara Gilbert: I don’t really watch that much TV. This is probably a better Luke question.Luke Perry: Well when I was a kid I was a big Starsky & Hutch fan. My mom was divorced and there was no strong male role model in the house, so I just picked up Paul Michael Glaser and David - loved it.In the Seventies all the great cops shows were on: SWAT, Beretta, Rockford Files. It was very easy to love them. I have always loved the Law & Order shows because Jerry Orbach was a friend of mine, so I started watching the original one.
And I thought, what a great idea - two shows in one. You get the law and the order. And I always wanted to be part of that famous (ching,ching,ching), that sound you get between the scenes.