A conversation with Christopher Meloni

NBC’s series “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” which debuted in 1999, starts its fifth season in September. The show focuses on the elite New York Police Department squad that deals largely with sex crimes. It stars Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler. Former cast regular Stephanie March returns as ex-A.D.A. Alexandra Cabot for a limited run arc early in the new season.

Christopher Meloni (ex-“Oz”), who plays Detective Elliot Stabler on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” says what first attracted him to the role of Elliot was that “he was the first good guy that had been offered to me after a long spell of playing bad guys. But he was also a flawed good guy.”

And flaws are good?

“For an actor? Very good. These characters are complex and interesting, and conflicted. With Elliot, for example, you have a man who has to deal with some really terrible things that come with the job. But somehow, he’s able to pull things together and keep what he experiences in the course of a day from taking over his life. And it takes a really strong man, like Elliot, to do that.”

Yet, we’ve seen Elliot reacting to a family situation that the audience knows is related to something that happened on the job.

“That’s true. While he tries not to take his work home with him, the fact is that’s not really possible,” Meloni says. “The best he can do is keep those feelings inside. But sometimes he lets them slip out.”

As, for example, his heightened protectiveness of his children after he’s confronted a crime involving a child.

“Exactly,” says Meloni, who in real life is the father of a young daughter and infant son. “And even though he knows more about the terrible things that can happen out there, and would love to be able to keep his children wrapped up and safe from all potential danger, all he can do is teach them and guide them and hope they’ll be OK.”

Meloni says the only doubt he had about playing Elliot Stabler when he first signed on was, “Would real police detectives accept what I do? And, I’m glad to say, they have. They tell me they recognize things (in the performance) that they see on the job and at home.”

One thing we haven’t seen is having Elliot ride around on a motorcycle.

Meloni laughs. “Yeah, that would be great. But seriously, while I love motorcycles, I don’t think it would work on the show,” he says, pointing out you can’t have him riding to a crime scene with his partner, Benson (played by Mariska Hargiay), holding on behind him.

Of course, they could bring back the old sidecar unit the police used in the 1930s.

“They could,” Meloni says. “But somehow, I don’t see either Stabler or Benson riding in one of them.”