Chris Meloni on Returning to ‘Law and Order’ and His Hilarious Threesome on ‘Maxxx’

Chris Meloni has been enjoying his career in the nine years after he left “Law & Order: SVU.” From “True Blood” to “Pose” to “Handmaid’s Tale,” among many other projects,” he has really shown range.

Just take a look at his latest series “Maxxx,” streaming on Hulu. In the British comedy, the show’s creator O.T. Fagbenle stars as the title character, a washed-up former boy band star who enlists a legendary music manager named Don Wild (Meloni) to help him make a comeback. Meloni transformed into the hard-partying Don by dying his hair jet black and wearing tons of jewelry and outrageous outfits, including a kilt.

In one of the show’s most eye-popping scenes, Maxxx has a threesome with Don and his wife. Their bedroom romp includes the use of a very large sex toy. “Thank God we had rehearsals because that’s where we really let it rip,” Meloni said during an appearance this week on the Variety After-Show. “Everybody goes, ‘Okay are we going to calm down now and focus on telling the story?’”

When TV production resumes after being stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Meloni will return to playing his iconic “Law & Order: SVU” character, Detective Elliot Stabler in a new installment of the hit franchise, “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”

“My reps thought it was a call to have me come back to ‘SVU’ to kind of wrap up his story, four episodes of something like that,” Meloni said. “But they just came out of the blue with a new show.”

Meloni didn’t hesitate about revisiting his old stomping grounds. “I think I maybe wanted to be less of a journeyman or a nomad because I’ve been doing that. It’s been great…but after a while you’re like, ‘Let’s look for a home base again for a while.”

Meloni says that Stabler will have to face the changes happening in law enforcement today since he left in 2011. “I thought he was a guy well aware of his faults,” he said. “I think he was a guy on the right side of justice. Nowadays that’s commendable, but you can’t use that as an excuse to go outside the boundaries just because you think my cause is the just cause because these lines have been — not blurring — they have been broken and people are fed up.”

Speaking of fed up, Meloni has made no secret of his dislike for President Trump, as evidenced by his many tweets blasting the commander-in-chief. “I feel as there are authoritarian actions taking place, corruptness is being enabled and the ineptitude is being glorified and sanctified,” he said. “I see things crumbling before me that I never thought would happen. I think we’re on the edge of very bad things.”

Meloni recalled seeing Trump at an NBC party during the early days of “The Apprentice.”

“What I saw was this big, slumbering guy. He walks in the room, he looks around to see who’s watching him,” Meloni said. “I just remember thinking, ‘What a…’

“Then I was very curious. If you’re that rich and you’re that known, what is this behavior? I was kind of fascinated by it. I was kind of studying him and he’s just looking around to see who’s looking at him,” Meloni said. “I was like, ‘Wow, that is like a bundle of insecurity.”

Meloni also talks about “breaking the Internet” with Instagram photos of himself and Mariska Hargitay, how he feels about being called a “zaddy” and more.

Watch the full video above.