Law and Order is the old Orange

July 13, 2014 10:09 AM

(nearly) Every actor from Orange is the New Black in their roles in Law and Order. From the bittiest of bit parts to some fairly substantial recurring characters. Contains very mild spoilers for S2 of OitNB.
posted by KathrynT (22 comments total)

You could do this for so many shows.
posted by ocherdraco at 10:38 AM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

(And it's really neat!)
posted by ocherdraco at 10:39 AM on July 13, 2014

Nice round-up!

Elisabeth Röhm as dreamy lesbian ADA Serena Southerlyn

This is kind of a radical interpretation of the source material, since the character had the vaguest of vague hints that she had any kind of sexuality at all before her "HEY I'M A DYKE" pronouncement on her way out. But I digress.

With over a thousand episodes shot in the NYC area, I'm always kind of amazed at any professional actor in the New York area who *hasn't* been on a L&O show. I figure it's just a matter of time - Dick Wolf's minions will be hanging out on streetcorners muttering "Hey, kid, want a SAG card? We got lots of sentences that need reading..." at passers-by.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:42 AM on July 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

With over a thousand episodes shot in the NYC area, I'm always kind of amazed at any professional actor in the New York area who *hasn't* been on a L&O show.

And then you get guys like Zach Grenier, who's so good at "weaselly middle-aged guy" that he was seven different people in the L&Overse, including two different judges in the same calendar year.
posted by Etrigan at 10:57 AM on July 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Someone had serious time on their hands. The write ups are funny though, and I learned that poor Pornstache seems to be typecast forever as a creep.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:07 AM on July 13, 2014

Dip Flash: "poor Pornstache seems to be typecast forever as a creep."

Nicky Sobotka on The Wire isn't really a creep, certainly not in comparison with most of the other Stevedores.
posted by Copronymus at 11:15 AM on July 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

With over a thousand episodes shot in the NYC area, I'm always kind of amazed at any professional actor in the New York area who *hasn't* been on a L&O show.

But there always seems to be a small circle of actors who dominate the guest star circuit -- I watched a lot of police procedural shows on DVD from different decades and it was kind of fun to re-watch and do the checklist of which actors appeared and how many shows they did, and even how times they appeared as different characters on the same show. It's not the big of a pool in any given time, so it's not that surprising...but you could have a blast Venn diagramming it...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 12:07 PM on July 13, 2014

I now can't hear of this show without recalling these words:

"In the Criminal Justice System the people are represented by three separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime, the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders, and the goddamn Batman."
posted by thelonius at 12:10 PM on July 13, 2014 [13 favorites]

Maybe because casting directors work on many different projects? Dick Wolf's "minions" don't do casting. Suzanne Ryan cast almost 400 episodes of this series and she's hardly a "minion."
posted by Ideefixe at 12:17 PM on July 13, 2014

So many Hudson University students.
posted by drezdn at 12:30 PM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

"[A]pproximately 700 speaking roles, played by actors from all walks of New York life, were doled out yearly by what we eventually called “the mother ship.”

Law and Order is the Kevin Bacon of TV shows.
posted by bibliowench at 1:04 PM on July 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ideefixe: No disrespect to casting professionals intended. It takes a certain finesse to look at someone and say "yeah, they can totally carry this part".

Now I'm going to end up noting casting staff overlaps for a while in credits ... :)
posted by rmd1023 at 1:05 PM on July 13, 2014

OMG pornstache was one of the longshoremen on the Wire! The mustache totally transforms him into a character you can't help but hate.
posted by photoslob at 1:34 PM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

At first I was like, Aw no love for Criminal Intent? Then I remembered once I woke up from the bizarre obsession I had with that show, I realized how very ridiculous it was.
posted by bleep at 1:40 PM on July 13, 2014

There was a long-running British cop show called The Bill which ended only a few years ago. I go to the theatre in London a lot, and for years I used to amuse myself as I waited for the curtain to go up by searching every actor's resume in the programme for the inevitable mention of The Bill. It was very, very rare to find any working actor who hadn't scored at least one appearance in the show, even if only as third villain's girlfriend or passer by in restaurant.

Back in the 1970s, the equivalent British show would have been The Sweeney, which drew on a rather smaller pool of extras for its minor roles. Hence that Squeeze lyric in The Sweeney verse of Cool For Cats: "It's funny how their missus / Always look the bleeding same".

Both those shows, incidentally, took their name from cockney rhyming slang terms for the police. Old Bill = Bill & Coo = Boys in Blue. Sweeney = Sweeney Todd = Flying Squad. Obvious, really.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:10 PM on July 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

I have heard many downtown performers refer to Law and Order as "the New York actor's WPA."
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 4:59 PM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hence that Squeeze lyric in The Sweeney verse of Cool For Cats: "It's funny how their missus / Always look the bleeding same".

Awesome fact of the day.
posted by kinetic at 3:26 AM on July 14, 2014

Is there a name for the fact/trope that if the detectives speak to a recognizable actor during the first act of the show, then that person is the one who did it?
posted by Mr. Big Business at 6:23 AM on July 14, 2014 [4 favorites]

Is there a name for the fact/trope that if the detectives speak to a recognizable actor during the first act of the show, then that person is the one who did it?

Murder She Wrote had the same trope. I suspect it's a longstanding tradition in the genre.
posted by Etrigan at 8:13 AM on July 14, 2014

OMG pornstache was one of the longshoremen on the Wire! The mustache totally transforms him into a character you can't help but hate.

This is like saying that Littlefinger was one of the politicians on the Wire.
posted by SpiffyRob at 9:00 AM on July 14, 2014

Pornstache is Littlefinger?
posted by Dip Flash at 9:02 AM on July 14, 2014

thelonius : Reminded me of this: CRIMEFIGHTERS (CREDITS MARCH) digitally-colored ink drawing 2005 @Brandon_Bird
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 10:06 AM on July 27, 2014 [1 favorite]