Ice-T Shares ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Behind-the-Scenes View From Character’s Desk

Ice-T is giving fans an up-close look at what it’s like to play Law and Order: Special Victims Unit‘s Detective Fin Tutuola. The rapper-turned-actor has been playing the beloved police detective for more than two decades now, and gave a look from behind the desk of Sgt. Ari Moldovan, a character fans have yet to meet, on Twitter early Thursday morning, captioning it, “My view right now.”

The “Cop Killer” rapper joked about the irony of how his career has shifted in his Monday appearance on Straight Up Steve Austin, “Playing a police! How the f—?!” Ice-T joked. “I went on the show to do four episodes, man. Here it is, we’re starting the 22nd season. I can’t really explain it, man.”

Asked if the role was still fun for him, the entertainer replied that it was the work environment that kept things fun two decades in. “So when I first got on the show I was with Richard Belzer. And I was there for about three months and they were like, ‘Well, Ice, you’re not bonding with the group.’ Meaning I guess they didn’t think I was gonna go out to lunch with them and all that. I was just saying my lines,” he recalled. “And I told them I said Chris [Meloni], Mariska [Hargitay], Belzer, Dann [Florek]. I said I used to rob banks. I don’t need to like you guys. I just need to know you know how to drive, you know how to control the room, you know how to go in the safe, you know how to listen to the radio. Guess what? After we rob some banks, we’ll be the best f—ing friends in the world. And we’ve been robbing the bank for 22 years.”

Meloni will be making his own return to SVU this season after exiting the show in 2011. His character, Elliot Stabler, will reunite with former partner Olivia Benson (Hargitay) on Season 22 of the show as a lead-in to his own spinoff, Law & Order: Organized Crime, set to premiere in 2021. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in July, Meloni explained that something fell into place that made him feel ready to step back into Stabler’s shoes. “For me, there were just personal things that I was like, ‘You know, now is a good time.’ That was it. There was nothing secret. It just was effortlessly correct,” he said. “It’s one of these [things where] I felt like I believed in the stars and all that… I’d go, ‘Oh, the stars are telling me you know but because it was just right.’”