LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: Peter Scanavino Picks His Favorite Carisi Moment from 2021

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT’s ADA Carisi (Peter Scanavino) had quite a 2021, trying a number of deeply challenging cases (and twice battling a longtime friend in the courtroom) and finally taking a big step in his romantic life.

But for Scanavino, when looking back at the year, his favorite moment to play for his character was digging into what viewers hadn’t really gotten to witness yet.

“I liked all the trial stuff in ‘Nightmares in Drill City‘ where you got to see the eighth floor [and] more of the politics that Carisi is dealing with, with Betty Buckley [who plays Trial Division Chief Lorraine Maxwell] and Teagle [F. Bougere, who plays Bureau Chief Phillip Baptiste] as my superiors,” he shares. “I liked that world and I’d like to explore that so you can see the legwork the Carisi has to do on his part [to get justice]. So I thought all those scenes were just great and illustrative, and showed you a lot about what Carisi’s day-to-day is like.”

Season 23 also found Carisi trying several homicide cases, stepping a bit of out of his SVU comfort zone. “I think it’s all in the same world for him, in getting justice,” Scanavino says. “I don’t think he has a preference either way [about what kind of case he tries]. But I think as a attorney, he realizes it’s not that simple. First, you have to agree with your superiors and a lot of other people as to what is justice. And then you have to go after that with what’s [assigned] to you by somebody higher up—sometimes that might not be what you agree with. So I think maybe when he first got into this, he was a little bit more idealistic in terms of how it was gonna go. And now he sees there’s a lot of politics involved, and sometimes he has to go against what he really wants to do.”

Looking ahead to 2022—and coming off a pretty high-profile case—Scanavino admits he’s intrigued to see what comes next for the no-longer-new ADA.

“I have spoken with some of the writers about how we really did get Carisi into his stride,” he says. “I think he’s more seasoned now; it’s his third years as the ADA. Which I know in the real world is not that much, but in TV-land, I think he can start settling into the position more. So I’m just really curious to see what they come up with, to see if he’s going to really thrive in this position. Or is it something where he says, ‘This is not what I thought it was going to be?’ I’m curious to see what they come up with—but I think there is going to be some good stuff.”

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC

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