Fan favorites Christopher Meloni, one of TV’s most intense actors, and Mariska Hargitay, one of its most beautiful, have signed on for at least two more seasons of their gritty NBC series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Variety reports they’ll each be paid nearly $400,000 an episode. The mag also notes talks had broken down some time in the spring, but were revived a few weeks ago.
All systems appear to be "go" on the series, which has also signed TV vet Christine Lahti, last seen on Aaron Sorkin's short-lived Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on NBC in 2006, to guest-star on a four-episode arc (storyline unknown). Additionally, former SVU-er Stephanie March will return in Episode Five for at least 10 episodes in her usual role of assistant DA Alex Cabot, Variety says, and former Prison Break star Wentworth Miller is signed on for a guest appearance in the season premiere, according to TV Guide Magazine.
Like the original Law & Order (referred to as "the mother ship" by L&O insiders), L&O: SVU has long been a mainstay on NBC, having been spun off from the mother ship in 1999. Meloni and Hargitay have been there from the beginning.
