In the Season 2 premiere of spin-off series Law & Order: Organized Crime, viewers were introduced to Sargeant Bill Brewster, who is no stranger to Sargeant Ayanna Bell. Brewster had been Bell’s former boss at NARCO where they regularly clashed and butted heads. So when the two are ordered by Lt. Marv Moennig to work together as a joint task force as co-commanders, there’s pretty much a guarantee that there will be some drama.
In an exclusive interview with PopWire (full interview in video below), Ainsley Seiger talks about the arrival of Sgt. Brewster and previews what’s to come in this week’s episodes.
“There will absolutely be a power struggle,” Seiger tells us about Brewster and his team.” It’s been really fun to play this sort of turf war with Brewster and his gang that he brings into the task force. There certainly is a power struggle in that Brewster comes in expecting very much to be treated like the head honcho rather than equals with Bell.”
What the actress finds interesting about bringing in Brewster and exploring his very tense relationship with Bell has been getting to figure out how her character Jet (Sloot) Slootmaekers feels “after not only spending Season 1 with Stabler and Bell but also the three months in between Season 1 and Season 2 with Stabler and Bell and seeing how she now reacts to having new people come in and how loyal she now feels to Stabler and specifically Bell.
“I’ve gotten to spend a lot more time shooting with Danielle [Moné Truitt] (Bell) this season,” Seiger continues, “which has been an absolute joy, and I’ve really discovered a lot of very protective energy coming up for me in the way that I feel about my sergeant, which is super awesome.”
Though she confesses she’s never seen the ABC drama Scandal, Seiger says she’s thrilled that Guillermo Diaz (Bill Brewster) has boarded Season 2. “I was a huge fan of him on Weeds and a huge fan of him on The Chapelle Show, so I was really excited to hear that he was joining the cast,” she says.
“He is such a gem, and he’s just so fun and enigmatic and effervescent and funny as a person, that it’s hard to want to hate him in the show as actors. Also, I will say to his credit, it takes a lot of work to be a very kind and warm person and to play a character who sucks a whole lot, and he does a fantastic job. It just goes to show really how incredible of an actor he is that he can make you not like him. [laughs]”
In the second half of Thursday’s 2-hour Law & Order: Organized Crime, Jet is tasked with locating another hacker and takes part in an underground hacking competition to lure him out. The whole 2-hour event, she shares, is one that she’s “very excited” for.
“It was so much fun getting to take Jet outside and push her a little bit outside of her comfort zone,” Seiger says, “which has been happening a lot this season and is always something that’s really fun to explore with a character who is so uncomfortable with so many normalcies of life.
“Jet really comes out of her shell, gets to do a lot of really cool stuff — and I think what I’m most excited about is the introduction of our new hacker friend who was so much fun to work with. We had the best time, and it’s hard to play this tense relationship with because I like him so much as an actor.
“What I’m really excited about for those episodes is getting to see Jet be a little bit more independent and getting to see her — we really will learn — we’ve seen it before, but I think it will be set in stone now just how good she actually is at all of this stuff — not just the computer stuff, but a little bit more of the inner workings of what it is to be a detective.”
The 2-hour Law & Order: Organized Crime event airs Thursday, September 30th at 9/8c on NBC.
