'Law & Order: SVU' Casting Director Gets Rare Bump to Co-Producer (Exclusive)

Law & Order: SVU is continuing to shuffle its ranks, this time upping longtime casting director to co-producer.

Emmy nominated casting director Jonathan Strauss has been upped to co-producer of the long-running NBC procedural, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

While Strauss will remain a casting director on the Mariska Hargitay starrer, his promotion to co-producer is a rare move in the industry.

"NBCUniversal and Wolf Films have afforded me this unique opportunity, and in television, a fairly unprecedented one, to serve as both casting director and co-producer on SVU,” he told THR.

Strauss, who has been a casting director for 15 years and has worked on such projects as Ed, Wonderland and features Pollock and Maid in Manhattan, will now be involved the postproduction process on top of his preproduction duties.

Strauss’ promotion comes as the series is heading into its 13th season – its first without co-star Christopher Meloni’s Detective Elliot Stabler and showrunner Neal Baer.

Lights Out’s Warren Leight is on board as showrunner with Danny Pino and Kelli Giddish joining the drama as detectives. Former ADAs Stephanie March and Diane Neal will return to the roles they originated on the series and Men of a Certain Age co-star Andre Braugher is in talks to recur on the series as an attorney who could get close to Hargitay’s Detective Olivia Benson.

Strauss, who earned an Emmy nom for casting Ed, is repped by Innovative Artists and Sloss Eckhouse Brennan Law.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit

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