Law & Order: Organized Crime is back for season 3 with new episodes airing Thursday nights at 10 PM ET on NBC. While covering the Law & Order Season Premiere red carpet, I had the chance to speak with Ainsley Seiger, Danielle Moné Truitt, Rick Gonzalez, and Brent Antonello about the series and much more!

Law & Order: Organized Crime follows the detectives of the Organized Crime Control Bureau as they work to dismantle New York City’s most vicious and violent illegal enterprises.

Ainsley Seiger and Danielle Moné Truitt have been on the show since the beginning, so to start off, I asked if there were any dream storylines that they’d like to see for their characters.

“I would love to get to be just uncomfortable as Jet in a long-term undercover arc, but I think something that’s really cool about Jet is that she’s able to compartmentalize very well, so she’s able to kind of forget herself and really put on the caricature of these other people at least from when I was on SVU and did the whole undercover thing. But also I would love to dive more into the cybercrime side of things. We tackled that a little bit in season two, but I’d love to get back into that because I think that’s where she really shines,” Seiger responded.

“I’m really happy with where my character is going this season, I’m really excited for the fans and people that watch to see how much Bell’s storyline is developing,” Truitt revealed. “I want to see more of Bell’s family, like her mother, her father, does she have siblings, where is she from, you know? It would be nice to see her in those kinds of environments, but out of what’s happening so far, I have a lot of great material and I’m really, really enjoying it. So I’m looking forward just to seeing where the writers go and what they come up with. We have conversations so I talked to them about Bell, so they definitely know how I feel about her. Bell’s getting divorced, so I kind of want to see dating. I want her to go on like, several dates, I think that would be really fun, she gets dressed up, she gets to go meet new people, I think that would be really cute.”

The show not only takes place in New York but films there so the actresses shared their love for the location.

“I think New York is a character of its own in our show, you know? It’s such a beautiful city, even from the dirtiest parts to the most majestic like, this place we’re in today is absolutely gorgeous. We have shot in places like this, we’ve shot in the Bronx, and you know, we’ve shot all over. So I love New York in general and I’m new to New York, I’m from California, so every time we shoot somewhere I’m like, ‘Where is this? Where are we?’ People are always explaining to me what borough we’re in, so I’m learning more of the city and it’s a very charming place. I’m really happy to be shooting here,” Truitt told me.

“For the crossover, I was shooting a scene with Chris on the street and you know, people will drive their cars past, roll down the window, and be like, ‘Stabler!’ We’re just kind of standing there talking and people are yelling at him out of their cars, and one person drove past us and was like, ‘Stabler,’ and he turned to me, he was like, ‘Did they just say sloot?’ I was like, ‘You’re insane. I know you’re trying to make me feel better about the fact that you’re so famous,’” Seiger joked. “But I really do love it. It always either throws a real wrench into the works that you kind of have to work around or it really brings a lot of stuff to life, you know, actually being out on the street, there’s traffic, and you have to talk louder than normal. I love living in New York now and it really is such an amazing, vibrant place.”

Seiger continued to tell me about one of her favorite memories from shooting: “I mean, I gotta say any time I really get to work with Chris is always a lot of fun. I love how well he can take a joke and that I can make fun of him and not get in any trouble about it, but Danielle too. This isn’t so much from set but we were doing promo stuff a few weeks ago and we were doing the questions of like, if you had to choose a hot dog or pizza, what would it be? But then we had one that was like, pick who you would partner with in this situation, who would you want to go on vacation with or who would you partner with in the zombie apocalypse? I had said if no one partnered with me, I was going to be really upset because I feel like I’m a great person to have in that situation, and the next day someone texted me and was like, ‘By the way, Chris said that he would partner with you in the zombie apocalypse.’ So I was very pleased about that, but it’s hard to choose a specific memory because we just have a lot of fun all the time.”

Since it debuted in 2021, Organized Crime has received a lot of support from fans and easily became a beloved part of Law & Order Thursdays. So what does that support mean to the cast?

Truitt explained, “It makes me feel good, I’m happy that my character was embraced, of course, working with Chris Meloni and the whole Stabler and Benson thing. They are so serious about it and I’m like, ‘Listen, guys, don’t jump me, Bell and Stabler are brother and sister. It’s all good.’ But it’s been really cute. I have a lot of fun with the fans, I tweet with them on Thursdays when I’m off work and pick our drink of the episode. Hopefully, this season I’ll be able to do something a little bit fancier with the drinks and tell people to make their own, so we’re coming up with some fun stuff, but I’m looking forward to this season and engaging with the fans. They’ve been wonderful to me.”

“I mean, it’s moments like today and events like this that really kind of put it all into perspective for me and make me think like, ‘Okay, this is like a lot bigger than just the usual go to work, do your scenes,’ which all becomes so normal and even working with Chris and Danielle, it’s like, ‘Okay, they’re my coworkers now,’ not that it’s not as special anymore, but it’s stuff like this that makes me sit back and just really observe from a place of gratitude,” Seiger voiced. “I really try to be humble about all of it and it’s hard because it’s really cool what we get to do.”

This season, fans were introduced to Jamie Whelan and Bobby Reyes, played by Brent Antonello and Rick Gonzalez.

“I mean it’s intense, but it’s surreal and exciting,” Gonzalez told me about joining the series and being at the press day. “I think we’re all just enjoying it and sort of pinching ourselves, and kind of looking at it like, ‘Man, we’re really here.’ We’ve been saying all day, everyone’s been so gracious, just great energy, and really welcoming to all of us. We are the newbies, right?”

Both actors also opened up to me about what audiences can expect from the two new characters and what it’s been like to portray them so far.

“They’re gonna meet Detective Bobby Reyes, he’s what they call the Invisible Man and so he has the ability to be anybody and everybody at the same time. So it’s gonna be really resourceful and useful for this Organized Crime unit. Again, obviously, we’re dealing with some really dark and heavy crimes in our unit, right? So you can only imagine an undercover detective sort of in that world and having to like mix it up. It’s gonna be exciting, it’s gonna be great, and working with this guy, he’s a great detective as well,” Gonzalez expressed.

Antonello added, “Playing Detective Jamie Whelan has been a blast. I mean he’s a rising star in the NYPD, he comes to the task force and kinda has the same attitude that Stabler used to have. I think Stabler sees that, so there’s this whole little mentorship going on, which has been a lot of fun to play, and you know, he has this hype about him coming to the task force and how he deals with that pressure that comes with it.”

We also discussed who they would like to see their characters interact with from any other show in the Law & Order franchise in the future.

“Oh, man… I mean, all of them. They’re legends and they’ve been around forever,” Antonello said. “I know when I came on, I’m a huge Jeffrey Donovan fan. I think he’s a really good character actor and he really pushes it. I would say Jeffrey just to throw out a random name.”

“I don’t know, I was thinking about this and I’m like, ‘It’d be nice if my character had some scenes with Sam Waterston,’ just to kind of cross paths. That would be iconic,” Gonzalez concluded.