Anthony Edwards' Law & Order role hit close to home: 'It's why we need TV'

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Anthony Edwards has now played multiple roles in the Law & Order universe, and both were personal to him for different reasons.

For his guest spot on SVU, it was playing opposite longtime friend Mariska Hargitay. “What is it, 18 years now she’s been doing this show? That is unbelievable to carry a show like that,” he says of his former ER costar (she appeared across 13 episodes in season 4). “Last year she asked me to come and play, and I was happy to do it.”

“And that is one happy show,” he tells Couch Surfing host Lola Ogunnaike. “You go and visit that set, and those people are happy.”

He describes his turn in Law and Order: True Crime, which focused on the case of the Menendez brothers, as “close to home.” “It dealt with molestation, which is something that hits close to me because I was molested when I was 12 years old.”

In 2017, Edwards published an essay online detailing his experience with sexual abuse as a minor. (The alleged perpetrator, producer Gary Goddard, has denied all allegations of abuse and harassment.)

“This idea of people having had that kind of experience, and what psychologically it does to them is pretty heavy, and the Mendendez really – they went in to that,” he says. “I think that’s why we tell these stories, is so we can all learn from them, and grow and laugh…it’s why we need TV and movies and theater.”

Watch the video above for more.