EXCLUSIVE: This is news Law Order: SVU fans — and series’ star/executive producer Mariska Hargitay — have been awaiting for two and a half years: Kelli Giddish is returning to the venerable NBC crime drama full-time, reprising her Amanda Rollins role as a series regular for its upcoming 27th season.
In one of the most talked about cast exits in SVU history — up there with original co-lead Christopher Meloni’s shocking 2011 departure — Giddish left as a series regular midway through Season 24 after Rollins married ADA Sonny Carisi Jr (Peter Scanavino) and left her Special Victims Unit detective job for a teaching career at Fordham University.
She never stayed away for long, returning in the Season 24 finale and appearing in two Season 25 episodes and five more this season. This will mark Giddish’s 15th season on the show overall.
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Rollins continued to pitch in on cases before leaving her university position and subsequently rejoining NYPD as sergeant in the intelligence section upon recommendation by Olivia Benson (Hargitay).
Rollins and Benson’s enduring friendship has been a hallmark of SVU, with Hargitay speaking out about her objections to Giddish’s departure and her efforts to bring her back to the show. (Hargitay and Giddish are also close friends off-screen.)
Giddish was a series regular for 11.5 seasons before she left SVU, with her character Rollins serving as a junior and then senior detective at the Special Victims Unit.
“Playing Rollins has been one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life,” she wrote on social media at the time of her exit. “There is simply no other character on TV like Rollins.”
Giddish is rejoining SVU as the series is undergoing changes going into Season 27. Michele Fazekas is coming in as new showrunner, the first woman to run the veteran procedural. She replaced David Graziano.
Meanwhile, recent SVU cast additions Juliana Martinez and Octavio Pisano are leaving as series regulars after one and three seasons, respectively.
In its 26th season, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is executive produced by Dick Wolf, Graziano, Julie Martin, Hargitay, Norberto Barba, Kenneth Brown and Peter Jankowski.
In addition to Graziano, Martin and Barba also are leaving as executive producers; Barba will continue to direct. SVU is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment.
Giddish’s TV series credits also include Yellowstone, The Good Wife, Chase and Past Life. She is developing a reimagining of her web series The Burg alongside Georgia Rippin at Kold Open and a TV adaptation of Martin Clark’s legal thriller The Substitution Order with Double Nickel Entertainment. Giddish is repped by Untitled Entertainment and Goodman Genow Schenkman.