Just when you think he’s out… they pull Elliot Stabler back in. The beloved detective played by Christopher Meloni had an epic run on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — to put it mildly — and now, he’s leading a gritty new spinoff series that reprises the same character. Season 5 of Law & Order: Organized Crime premieres in April (this time on Peacock), and MovieWeb recently had the chance to learn more about it from Meloni’s co-star: Dean Norris. The celebrated Breaking Bad actor has been busy promoting his new horror-comedy The Parenting, now streaming on Max, and Norris took time to share more about his exciting Law & Order show as well, including his longtime rapport with Meloni.
“Chris and I did a movie together, a small movie called Small Time about two used car salesman, and that was about 10 years ago. And I just loved him,” Norris told us. “We just had great chemistry together. So it was just serendipitous and awesome that, you know, they called me to play his brother [on Organized Crime], and I could not be more thrilled.” Norris continued:
“I didn’t necessarily want to play a cop on one of those things. And now, I get to play this really different kind of character — this, you know, psychologically interesting guy. And it’s so fun to play with Chris, and we also do a bit of improvising on that, in fact, quite a bit. We definitely get the essence of the scene and, you know, what the writers do, but we will go off… And I trust him, and he trusts me, and it’s really a fun show to do.”
A Sequel to ‘Carry-On’ & ‘The Parenting?’
In addition to The Parenting, Norris can also be spotted on another streamer — in the recent hit thriller Carry-On on Netflix. Fans would welcome a sequel to it, and Norris weighed in as well. “Certainly, I would. We’ll see what happens,” he said. “I hope The Parenting has a sequel called The Grandparenting, when the two boys have a baby. I think that would be fun. Yeah, we’ll see.”
On that note, while The Parenting is indeed a haunted house movie, it also succeeds through its relatable and comedic elements. Norris plays the dad of one of two young guys in love, who are stressing about arranging for their families to formally meet for the first time. Said Norris:
“It’s tough enough for two people to get married, but then what you’re really marrying is two families. I mean, that’s just the way it is, right? So I know the dynamic of that, and I have, you know, sisters who’ve been married. And so I’ve seen all the dynamics of how difficult it may be… I’ve seen all that and experienced some of it, and so I brought that to this. But, you know, obviously… my in-laws have never been possessed by a f***ing 400-year-old poltergeist. So that makes it a little more difficult.”
Hopefully, your in-laws have never been possessed by a haunted house, either — but it makes for a juicy movie plot. The Parenting is now streaming on Max through the link below:
This story originally appeared on Movieweb