Christopher Meloni is back on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit after being a staple more than a decade ago and stars in a successful spinoff. But outside of the series, his acting chops have been showcased in a major way. The actor starred in two seasons of the WGN America time period series Underground, alongside Jurnee Smollett, Amrah Vaughn, Aldis Hodge and others, telling the stories of revolutionaries who were part of the famed Underground Railroad spurred by Harriet Tubman. Meloni said that the acclaimed series co-created by Lovecraft Country’s Misha Green may have ended too soon, calling it a show that was “before its time.”
“Absolutely,” Meloni said in an interview with Shadow and Act. “Underground was one of those projects that while I was in the middle of it, I was so profoundly proud of being able to be invited to be a part of that storytelling. It was very much like when I did 42, the Jackie Robinson story. It was a certain amount of importance…I just felt like I was in the middle of it and it was such an important project.”
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According to an official logline, the series follows Noah, “a restless slave named Noah organizes a small team of fellow slaves on the Macon plantation outside Atlanta, and puts together a plan to run for their lives — 600 dangerous miles North — to freedom. The odds of success are slim; the path to freedom’s terrain is unforgiving, and Tom, their politically ambitious owner will surely kill anyone attempting to run. For those who make it off the plantation, the risks and uncertainties multiply. They leave family behind to pay for their sins, as they face danger and death at every turn. They’re aided along the way by an abolitionist couple in Ohio, new to running a station on the Underground, unprepared for the havoc it will wreak with their personal lives, while they evade a ruthless slave catcher hell-bent on bringing them back, dead or alive.”
Meloni starred as August Pullman, who starred as a “white savior” initially — but the illusion was quickly shattered, per an interview he did with TIME Magazine. He was eventually exposed as a slave catcher who taught his 11-year-old son Ben (Brady Permenter) the ropes of the game.
