Mehcad Brooks Says His Role on ‘And Just Like That’ Season 3 Feels Like ‘When Harry Met Sally’

October 29, 2024 @ 3:19 PM

Mehcad Brooks will play an “award-winning editor” who falls for Nicole Ari Parker’s character on “And Just Like That,” the “Law & Order” star recently told TheWrap.

“It’s like ‘When Harry Met Sally?,’ a very quintessential, New York romcom,” he said, referencing Rob Reiner’s romantic 1989 classic. “I love this kind of thing. There’s a lot of really funny interactions and boundary crossing with designer clothes on.”

Brooks, who plays Detective Jalen Shaw on “Law & Order,” explained that even though Parker’s character, the memorably named Lisa Todd Wexley, and his are already married to other people, they find an “undeniable attraction” that leads to “an acrobatic sort of dance” as they get closer.

Here’s more of TheWrap’s chat with Brooks:

TheWrap: Tell me more about your character:

Mehcad brooks: His name is Marion Odin, and he’s a he’s a award-winning editor, and he’s hired by Lisa Todd Wexley,Nicole Ari Parker’s character, to turn one of her documentaries into a series and flush it out into something else. And they begin to find a mutual attraction towards each other [even though] they’re both married, and that is obviously an issue.

They do this acrobatic sort of dance, and on this tightrope of learning more about each other. They have mutual respect for each other but also this undeniable attraction. Maybe in some other dimension they would be full-on, married themselves. But this is not that dimension.

Was it fun to play the comedy, coming from the far more serious world of “Law & Order’?

Well, we are interjecting a lot more comedy [into “Law & Order”] this year. It’s not like laugh-out-loud, but there’s  a sardonic humor to it. There’s sarcasm, right? There’s some dark comedy bits, but, and there’s some buddy comedy bits between me and Reid [Scott, who lays his partner], but this is different.

This is romcom stuff. This is over-the-top stuff. This is Michael Patrick King rhythm of the comedy. H’s brilliant and a genius and I’m just so lucky and happy, and I got to work with him. He’s amazing, right?

There were days where I got up at four o’clock in the morning and would hit the gym and then go to “And Just Like That,” do this really funny, rhythmic, laugh-out-loud type of comedy. And then at 1 p.m., I’d eat lunch, and then go kick some doors with the SWAT team [for “Law and Order”].

“And Just Like That” Season is set to return to HBO in 2025. Rosie O’Donnell will join Season 3 of “Sex and the City” sequel, while Karen Pittman, who played Professor Nya Wallace for the first two seasons, won’t be back due to scheduling conflicts.