Kelli Giddish Reflects on the Invisible String That Led Her to SVU and Why Returning Felt ‘Right’ (Exclusive)
The season 27 finale of ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ will air Thursday, May 14 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC
Kelli Giddish is happy to be here.
The actress, 46, is all smiles as she sits down to chat with PEOPLE, happy to be in studio, yes, but perhaps even happier to be back home on Law & Order: SVU as the show wraps its 27th season on NBC.
“It’s the Dick Wolf Universe. When they form relationships with people, you have faith and trust that if there’s a spot for you that opens up back in the family, they’ll invite you back. And if it’s right for your time, for your life, then you can take them up on it,” Giddish says, reflecting on her return to series regular this season.
Giddish first departed SVU in December 2022. She then welcomed her youngest child, son Oldie, with husband Beau in June 2023. She’s also mom to sons Ludo, 10, and Charlie, 7.
“To leave and come back, it was kind of fortunate timing for me because I got to have my third baby, and for the first time I got to stay at home with my baby,” she says. “And then once he was a year old, I came back, and now I’m there full time and I can’t believe we’ve wrapped the season already. It went so fast.”
Giddish says she’s looking forward to enjoying some family time during hiatus before SVU resumes shooting (for season 28!) in July, but she’d be lying if she said she doesn’t miss work when she isn’t there.
“I’m looking forward to next season already. It’s going to be fun. And coming back this year, I say it’s like riding a bike, but it’s so fun to work there and to be with my crew that I’ve known forever. Their kids were this big when I started,” she says, holding her hand close to the ground, “and now they’re getting married. It’s crazy. I’m so fortunate to have these relationships.”
When Giddish first joined the show as Amanda Rollins in 2011, Christopher Meloni had just exited as Elliot Stabler. The show was going through a transition period, and she hadn’t been quite sure what to expect.
“I’m not a huge TV watcher, so I wasn’t a big watcher of the show when I got the gig. All I knew was that Chris was leaving and so they needed a couple of actors to come in and kind of fill in around [that],” she recalls. “And I go, ‘Well, I mean, Mariska [Hargitay] is great, but they’re messing with the whole formula between those two? It may not last.'”
Giddish laughs now at her own naivety.
“Fifteen years later, not only am I still on it, it’s still going strong,” she says. “So no, I did not imagine this!”
Giddish then moved her life from Los Angeles to New York, where she’s remained. She’d done stints in theater and in movies and was even guest starring on The Good Wife when she signed on to SVU.
“I always told my parents ‘Every single step I’m taking in my career, you kind of throw seeds out. You never know when they’re going to come into fruition,'” she explained. “I’d met [former showrunner] Warren Light when I was 18 at a playwrights conference in the middle of nowhere Indiana. It’s like summer camp for adults. I’d met him there, and he remembered me 10, 11, 12 years later and thought of me for the role.”
Rollins in all her complexities came together as a character rather quickly, Giddish says, which made her love the role even more.
“I think originally Rollins was supposed to be from like, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. And I was said, ‘Huh, that’s an interesting accent. We could just make her from Georgia?’ And [Warren] was like, ‘Done.’ We even talked about the gambling addiction back in very preliminary conversations about who this woman would be. And I was always so excited to make somebody dirty and gritty. And so knowing that I was going to have all of that to play with and all that history and the amazing Warren Light to write it was such a great experience,” she says.
“And I remember getting to read each and every script that came out, I was like, ‘They’re just so moving.’ And I still feel that way. When the new scripts come out, I’m like a kid getting a new Harry Potter book. I’m so excited to read through them. It’s a puzzle that I have to figure out every single day. So it keeps your mind really engaged. And then we also have a really amazing number one to lead the way and to set the tone for the whole production for every single day,” she says, smiling as she talks about her longtime pal Hargitay. “It’s a really, really great place to work. People don’t even know the half of it.”
