The actress said that Dick Wolf told her to change her hair before being cast in Law & Order, but has nothing but praise for the producer: “He’s a good guy.”

Law & Order star S. Epatha Merkerson says NBC execs had a ‘problem’ with her ‘big afro’: ‘I’ll go home and fix it’

The actress said that Dick Wolf told her to change her hair before being cast in Law & Order, but has nothing but praise for the producer: “He’s a good guy.”

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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August 15, 2026 5:44 p.m. ET

S. Epatha Merkerson in Atlanta on March 21, 2026. Credit:

Paras Griffin/Getty

- S. Epatha Merkerson was cast as Anita Van Buren in season 4 of *Law & Order*.

- The actress said that producer Dick Wolf told her that NBC had “a big problem with your hair” before she signed on to the show.

- She responded, “I’ll go home and fix it, and I’ll come back,” and was cast on the show shortly thereafter.

S. Epatha Merkerson says she was pressured to make a change to her physical appearance to land a role on a major show.

The actress discussed being cast as a regular on *Law & Order* during an interview with PEOPLE, claiming that creator Dick Wolf told her that higher-ups at the network wanted her to look different.

“[Dick] called me in, and he said, ‘It’s your hair. NBC has a problem with your hair,’” Merkerson remembered. “I said, ‘What do you mean?’ Because I had a big afro.”

Merkerson resolved to address the network’s feedback. “I said, ‘It’s the hair? I’ll go home and fix it, and I’ll come back,’ and I did just that,” she recalled.

Representatives for NBC did not immediately respond to **’s request for comment.

Wolf wanted to cast Merkerson as Anita Van Buren as soon as he saw her new look. “When I walked in, he just looked at me and he said, ‘That’s Van Buren.’ That’s how it started,” she explained. “My relationship with Dick, it was an immediate connection.”

S. Epatha Merkerson on ‘Law & Order’.

Will Hart/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty

The actress made her debut as the detective squad chief in 1993, two years after she’d guested on the show as a different character. She ultimately played Van Buren for 17 years, all the way until the series ended its original run in 2010.

“*Law & Order* — people still watch it, which is so amazing — is all about the storytelling,” Merkerson reflected. “You have good stories and good actors; it’s bound to succeed.”

She added, “It was a phenomenon really, and to have been a part of that has really been an honor for me.”

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Merkerson returned to her theater roots after the series wrapped in 2010, and eventually heard through the grapevine that Wolf still “loves her” as an actress.

“I said, ‘Tell him I want a job. Tell him exactly that Epatha says she wants a job,’” she said. “And he called me back, I bet you it was 15 minutes later, and he said, ‘If you want to go to Chicago, there’s a job.’”

She became a regular cast member of Wolf’s *Chicago Med* in 2015, and has remained on the show for 11 years.

“What that says to me is that I have a good working relationship with Dick and with Peter and Arthur [W. Forney], the people that work there,” she told PEOPLE. “They know that I believe in what we do. They know that I participate and I try to do my best in everything.”

Merkerson has nothing but praise for Wolf. “The world that he put me in, that he allowed me to work in, I have to come with the right stuff. You can’t last if you’re not doing what needs to be done,” she said. “It says a lot about my work ethic that he continues to trust that I’ll come in and do my best. It says a lot about what he thinks of me as well, which I appreciate.”

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She concluded, “I’ll be 74 in November, and I’m still having fun. I’m still enjoying the work, and I want to continue to do it as long as I can. It’s like I told the kids when we first started: we’re going to be here for at least 10 years. This is Dick Wolf. He’s a good guy. He’s very focused, and the work that he produces, he looks for the best in everyone because he brings the best, and this has been the best.”

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Source: “EW Crime”