The Real Reason Jesse L Martin Left Law & Order After 9 Years as Detective Ed Green
He ended up playing a cop again on another hit show.
Even though Special Victims Unit proved to be significantly more popular than the original Law & Order, the parent series has enjoyed stable viewership over its long run, with millions of people tuning in to follow the beloved characters and their stories.
That is why Jesse L. Martin's decision to leave the hit show was met with a lot of questions from fans, as his Detective Ed Green was considered one of the most compelling characters of the crime drama.
In a major primetime show like Law & Order, characters often get eliminated whenever the writers and showrunners feel there is no longer any room for them in the story. But in the case of Martin, the actor decided to end his tenure on the project himself, which led to Ed Green being written off the script.
The actor joined Law & Order in Season 9 and played the lovable detective for nine years, leaving after Season 18. So, according to Martin himself, he simply got tired of playing his character for so long and wanted to return to his theater career instead.
'It was pretty much time for me. I need to get back on stage before I get too scared to do it again.' the actor said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. 'And with that schedule, it would be really difficult for me to ever really get to do anything like that.'
His explanation seemed perfectly logical at the time, and fans of the actor supported him in his decision to return to the theater stage. However, Martin didn't actually spend much time on Broadway, joining another hit show in 2014.
For the following nine years, Jesse L. Martin played police captain Joe West on The CW's The Flash. If anything, this suggests that he wasn't really that interested in returning to his theater work, but was simply tired of playing the same character on Law & Order for so long.
As fans, we are amazed at Martin's career achievements, as starring as a cop on two hit shows for 18 years is something not many actors can boast of!
Source: Entertainment Weekly.