Exclusive: Raul Esparza Talks ‘SVU’ At NBCUniversal Upfront

Raul Esparza gave us some scoop on the season finale and what’s next for Barba on the red carpet for the NBCUniversal Upfront.

It’s been a great year for the show. Mariska won the Best Female TV Character. 

She keeps winning those prizes! She walks out of her house and wins a prize!

Well how’s it working with her and everyone else?

They’re a really, really good group of people. We’re a really happy ensemble and honestly a lot of guest stars will come in and say how great it is to work with us and I think we have a solid cast of actors—Kelli Giddish is a fine, fine actress–every time they throw stuff her way, she absolutely delivers. But between Ice, Kelli, and Pete and Mariska, who’s kinda our fearless leader, I think we make a really strong team. It’s a happy place to work, believe it or not, given how dark it is. It doesn’t seem like it would be but you have to counter the weight of the stories with a little bit of laughter.

And what can fans expect for the next season?

A lot of complications—we don’t know what to expect. We have a new show runner and I don’t know exactly where we’re going to head. The way the season ends right now—there’s a couple of good cliff hangers but it’s a very emotional two parter that brings the whole season down. And Barba’s life is being threatened and we don’t know by whom. And Benson has no idea what her future is going to be and we lose a member of the squad, so it’s going to be a fresh start for next season … since we have a new show runner for next season and we’ll see where he’ll take us.

And what about your character?

Hopefully we’ll find out why he’s being threatened, hopefully I won’t get killed. Or maybe he will be killed a couple of episodes in, I have no idea. I think more trouble—Barba’s been getting his foot caught in the door lately which I really like—he gets himself into situations where he can’t help himself, he’s talking sh-t. And he starts to get himself into political problems last season, he started to get himself into very hot button issues and a lot of people turned on him and I really like when that happens because it’s fun to do and I hope that we continue to do more of that.

And are you watching any shows or films lately?

When you work on TV all year, I like the opportunity to just shut down completely. I was just talking about Unbreakable Kimmy Shmidt, that’s why I can’t say I’m following, it’s just that I saw the whole thing. And finally what I get to do now is to catch up with all the shows I  didn’t get to see while we were filming. I have a break to binge watch Games of Thrones and The Walking Dead and all the things that everybody else has been talking about. And I’m like don’t tell me, don’t tell me.