‘Law & Order: SVU’: Kelli Giddish Talks Benson & Rollins’ Dynamic and Looks Ahead to Season 28 (VIDEO)

While Sergeant Amanda Rollins may not like hearing the word “settled” to describe her right now, Law & Order: SVU star Kelli Giddish acknowledges that she is, as the show heads into Season 28, premiering on NBC this fall.

“I think there’s always a part of her that needs to keep moving. So, settled, even when you say that, I’m like, no, she’s never settled. But I think she has a good home base finally,” Giddish explains in our video interview above from when she stopped by TV Insider’s ATX TV Festival suite. “She has a good relationship she can fall back on. She has somebody that’s stable, that loves her, that can say, ‘Hey, it’s OK. It’s OK to sit still. It’s OK to be back here.’ And so that’s a really cool aspect of her to play because she’s always been so impulsive.”

Rollins and ADA Sonny Carisi’s (Peter Scanavino) marriage was one of the stable parts of Season 27. And it’s something that she has very much needed.

“She gets to be loved. She gets to be grounded,” says Giddish. “She gets to have something that she’s never had. She didn’t grow up with stability, so it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing. We don’t show it a lot, I think, because filming with kids is very hard to be honest, but they’ve got that family there and then the family in the squad room.”

Speaking of the squad room, Giddish is hoping to, in Season 28, explore Rollins’ leadership role and “that groundedness,” she shares. “What does that manifest itself in, in terms of like order in her life and how she relates to the other detectives in the squad room?”

Rollins returned to SVU after Chief Tynan’s (Noma Dumezweni) manipulation in Season 27, and as Benson told her, “Personally, it sure would be nice to have somebody in here I could trust.” Their bond is one that was built over the years.

“It’s been completely organic. They didn’t squash us together and say, ‘Hey, you guys are both girls, so you’re going to like each other,’” Giddish tells us. “We were both strong female characters on the show and we found our way to trusting each other, to relying on each other, to seeing a mirror of ourselves in each other. They’re both moms, working moms. So all of those things kind of just, it was built just layer by layer by layer.”

That’s reflective of the stars’ relationship off-screen, too. “Now, there’s no one I adore more in life and can count on and rely on and I celebrate her,” Giddish shares.

Watch the full video interview above for more from Kelli Giddish.