Question: Paget, can you please tell us a little bit behind your reasons for leaving CRIMINAL MINDS?

Paget Brewster: Unfortunately, I've known several actors on shows and they're there for a long time and they're cranky. And while it can be a family in the sense that sometimes you hate each other, you can't stand being around each other and grudges are held and there's gossip. Being on a show for a long time -- by the way, none of which I saw at SVU -- I was getting cranky on CRIMINAL MINDS and we'd gone through some unnecessary cast changes. That's about as diplomatic as I can be about it. And I never got over it. I didn't get over it.

It was a bummer when A.J. [Cook] and I were fired. That was just really tough emotionally for everyone on that show. When I was asked to leave, I left. I shot a pilot, it didn't go. And then they made me come back, and I did. And I decided to enjoy it and it was one year. I care about everyone at CRIMINAL MINDS. I knew I needed to leave and do something else and let someone else have that job.

Question: Would you go back to CRIMINAL MINDS in a guest starring role?

Paget Brewster: Yeah, sure, if they wanted me to, but I think it's kind of tricky. I think what I was told was a lot of people have to sign off on that -- and I don't know if it would work for this show -- but I really like everybody at CRIMINAL MINDS. I would love to guest star, but I don't know if that's in the cards.

Question: When you left CRIMINAL MINDS, the thought was that you wanted to go do comedy. What was it about this role that made you change your mind?

Paget Brewster: Oh, I did actually leave CRIMINAL MINDS to do comedy -- and I hope that that will be forthcoming -- but you just don't say no to SVU. Who would? Those guys are awesome. They work incredibly hard. It's a really exciting environment and I think Mariska [Hargitay] is just a wonderful woman who loves working with women. It's pretty much the only cop show that I would do. I mean, as far as it being based in law enforcement. But I love the show so I would have been crazy to say no.

Question: Speaking of Mariska Hargitay, what was it like working with one of the genre's other leading ladies?

Paget Brewster: Well, the interaction between our characters in the episode is that my character, Paula Foster, is prosecuting Benson's captain and the team's captain. I'm sort of going after him. I've replaced him with an interim police chief and I'm building the case. My character and Mariska's character come together to sort of offer each other information, and it sort of becomes a friendship to a certain degree of two strong women working in this line of work. While at the beginning they had different end goals, they sort of team up to exchange information.

In real life I honestly think Mariska's one of the funniest women I've ever met, and I just love working with her. I really look up to her immensely. I think she's just a powerhouse, and I enjoy her very much. I've been, and will always be, a big Mariska fan.

Question: Is there potential for Paula Foster to return beyond the two-part Season 14 premiere?

Warren Leight: There's a potential for it, but it would be intricate. Put it that way. From a work point of view we wouldn't have a second thought about it. There's a lot of collateral damage in the wake of Paula Foster's work as a D.A., and so that would have to be sorted through.

Question: SVU and CRIMINAL MINDS are known for its dark and mature subject matter. Paget, what attracts you to these darker roles and do you worry about them having any lasting effects on you? I know Mandy Patkinin said a few days ago that CRIMINAL MINDS' disturbing story lines took a toll on him personally.

Paget Brewster: I think it can affect you profoundly, if that's sort of the person you were to begin with. I think Mandy's very sensitive and he wouldn't argue with my saying that. I can understand why it took a toll on him.

When I first joined CRIMINAL MINDS, I started studying the actual FBI training manuals, and that was a problem for me because no civilian should see the photos that are in the FBI manual. So that profoundly affected me in the beginning, but then it became a job with a family and people who are your friends that you care about and you see every day. Sometimes it's dark and it's hard to take in, and it can touch you. But, in general, I think making these shows is a job and we're all so lucky to be working.

Question: Did you find a lot of similarities between series? Were there a lot of challenges for you to jump from one crime procedural to another?

Paget Brewster: They're actually both extremely different shows and different behind the scenes as well. I think a lot of that was the difference to me of being a series regular and being a guest and playing a character I've never played before.

Playing Prentiss for six-and-a-half years on CRIMINAL MINDS, at a certain point you're so familiar with the rhythms and who your character is and who the other people you're working with are that you can reach a point where you get lazy. And I'm afraid I did that and that was my fault and one of the reasons why I wanted to go out and do something else. I became too familiar and I didn't appreciate it to the degree that I should, that any actor should appreciate being a part of the show.

And on SVU it was actually absolutely terrifying so that the bar was higher and what I had to provide was trickier and harder for me because it wasn't a character that I knew. And I think that's what I wanted. It was great to be challenged and excited and nervous and asking for help. So it's actually a personal and professional experience that I will never be able to thank these guys enough for.

Warren Leight: I would say we put a very heavy load on Paget. That character that we're asking her to play is not just an exposition carrier. There's a lot of layers to that character and, it's always a surprise for outsiders who come to our set because everyone knows their lines before shooting begins and that's not how it usually works.

Question: What's it like to come back to SVU in a different role as compared to your previous guest spot on the show?

Paget Brewster: The first time around [pictured], which I guess was five-and-a-half, six years ago, when Scheherazade was Brian Dennehy, was such as enjoyable and exciting experience. This topped it because I got to do two hours of the show, and I got to work with everybody in the main cast. I was just really flattered. There's so many actors that I've seen on SVU that come back as different characters; so I'm really excited and honored to sort of be in those ranks because they're great people. So it was doubly exciting to come back.

Question: Do you have any great behind-the-scenes moments from working on SVU?

Paget Brewster: One day me, Kelli [Giddish] and Mariska [Hargitay] were doing this scene in the park. We rehearsed all of our lines but talking like valley girls. It was a very heavy scene about the poor captain in the bed with the hooker and we were - so what about Gonzal? What are we going to do about him and where's Cassidy? And it was so stupid. But they are such funny women. We were dying laughing. That was probably my favorite.

Question: Do you have any other upcoming projects that we can look forward to?

Paget Brewster: No, not really. I'm waiting for the right thing, The only thing I've wanted to do is SVU. So far everything else has just not been my cup of tea. I left CRIMINAL MINDS because I wasn't as excited. I just needed to do something new so I sort of have to honor that and wait and wait until something that I really care about comes along.

Question: How much of this season deals with the relationship between the media and police work?

Warren Leight: Well, that's in the first three episodes for sure, and it will come up in others as it is partially reflected in the reality of these crimes in New York at the moment. Sex crimes, it's the only division of police work where the victim has to prove a crime actually occurred and very often the victim is tried in public, not the suspect. So I find that an interesting area to go into. We will hit it because it's a natural component a lot of these stories. A lot of the he-said/she-said kinds of stories play out. By the time the jury has been chosen, the case is done because they've all been tainted by the coverage. So we talk about that.

I would say another theme of the season which was very much a part of Paget's episode, in fact she has a line in the episode about secrets, everyone has secrets, the captain does, you do, I do. And so that's something that we'll be looking at a lot in the season, the secrets people keep and the damage those secrets can cause.

Question: How has the investigation taken a toll on the characters in the precinct?

Warren Leight: Yeah, we ended last season with a dead hooker in the captain's bed and that's all bad for precinct morale. So Cragen is under a huge cloud of suspicion but Nick Amaro is also caught up in this. He was the last person to see Carissa alive so he's under a cloud, and for the first time he senses that even Benson and the others don't trust him. He's a sensitive guy, and after all he's been through with Benson, that she doesn't completely have his back, for him that's a terrible betrayal.

So there's a lot of what I'd call a triangulation within the squad room. Nobody knows what to make of it. Will the captain come back? If he does come back will he have any authority, will things be the same? There's a lot of stress when your patriarch is under attack. And because Nick's caught up in it, it puts more stress on the different partnerships. And so it's pretty cataclysmic, I wanted to end the season with an emotional explosion in the squad.

Question: Can you talk about cast migration on SVU. When you write out characters, is it always because the actors are leaving or is it ever to make room for a character who can bring something different to the show?

Warren Leight: I inherited a cast that was migrating. So I haven't done too much of that.

Almost everyone in the cast we just had in these two episodes, I keep wondering if there is any way I can bring them back week after week after week. But if they're a felon, it's very hard to keep them as a recurring character. So one of the things that's hard is these people come in and you really enjoy working with them and you enjoy their company and there's really no way to keep them in the squadron when you wonder how you can possibly bring them back some time later.

We just had our 300th episode and Danny and Richard and Mariska are as invested as any actors I've ever worked with. That's not often the case. If you're on a show where people are one way or another disengaged, that's a sign and you might try and talk to them about it or you might try and write something about their character feeling disengaged but if it doesn't turn around it's time for that actor to get engaged with something fresher I guess.

Question: NBC posted pictures of that 300th episode of Law and Order, SVU. Do you have special plans for it?

Warren Leight: For the 300th episode, we're doing a couple of things that are interesting. I wanted to refer back to the show's earliest days. The episode's called "Manhattan Vigil,"and it's the story of a wealthy family whose kid is snatched in the middle of the day. It reminds detective Benson and Munch of a case from 13 years ago of a missing boy snatched in the same neighborhood when the neighborhood was far less upscale and it was a case that got (fewer) resources.

There's a lot of déjà vu to the episode on purpose. Jean de Segonzac directed the pilot so we have him directing the 300th episode. And we have a number of actors in this episode who had parts in the pilot episode. Not playing the same characters, we just wanted to bring them back and we figured they did something right if the show is still going 300 episodes later. So we thought it was a way of saying thanks. The episode in a sense compares these characters now to where they were when the show began. I wanted it to be different from episode 299 and episode 301.

Question: With so many cop shows on TV tackling dark topics very similar to SVU, how hard is it for you to keep things fresh season after season?

Warren Leight: Well, unfortunately rape and sexual violence is a big part of our society, so we don't run out of story lines. Although I'd love to run out of story lines, I don't see that happening. Last year there was a spaight of powerful men behaving badly, starting with Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anthony Weiner. It was just one after another after another. And that became interesting for us about how do we explore that in the show. I don't like to sensationalize these stories. It's more we try very hard to shed some light into the dark areas of the human psyche and to actually depict the sometimes serpentine judicial process that victims and survivors have to go through. 

We don't run out of story ideas. One of the rewarding things about SVU is the show tries very hard -- and I think succeeds -- giving victims and survivors a sense that they're not alone, because we try to empathize with them. So we're not looking to exploit so much as to depict. And we get a lot of feedback from people who say they were able to come forward about incidents in their life because the show helped them find a voice. I think we take our role very seriously.

Question: Now that SVU is the only LAW & ORDER left on television, you've got a whole range of characters that you could bring in on the show, besides Kathryn Erbe from CRIMINAL INTENT. Are there plans to involve any more of the LAW & ORDER characters in the coming season or is the focus more on developing the new characters?

Warren Leight: Well, it's funny. Katy just finished shooting her episode and it was a very natural crossover even though CRIMINAL INTENT fans never watch SVU and SVU fans never watch CRIMINAL INTENT. It's like a Hatfield & McCoyy's situation. It was great to bring her in.

Right now, I'm open to it but I don't know who or when. The advantage of bringing in, say, someone like Katy is there's such a history to her character so we added a scene to the end in a bar between Mariska and Katy. And, you know, there's 25 years of law enforcement between the two of them, and we've seen most of it and it's just sort of fun - they started talking about their partners and we actually just quickly scripted stuff on the set at the bar and shot what was going on.

Question: Are there any plans that you know of of another LAW & ORDER spinoff? Has anyone talked about that at all?

Warren Leight: I'm curious to see if there's another iteration somewhere down the line. From a writing point of view, it's a privilege -- you're allowed to write as smart as you can. I've never been asked to dumb down a LAW & ORDER script. I'd like to believe there's room for another generation in some way.