Jamie Gray Hyder became a familiar face on NBC when she joined Law & Order: SVU in 2019. She played Officer (and later Detective) Kat Tamin for two full seasons before being written out at the beginning of Season 23. Her character went through a traumatic experience that led to her decision to leave Special Victims. Now, the actress shared her thoughts with CinemaBlend about whether or not she’d return to SVU after being abruptly written out.
Hyder can soon be found as part of a very different project, as she voiced Hawkgirl in the Green Lantern: Beware My Power animated movie that comes out on home media on July 26. She spoke with CinemaBlend’s Adam Holmes, and weighed in on a potential return as Kat:
Absolutely! I loved working with all my costars on SVU and in the business, if you’re not dead, then there’s always the possibility for you to come back [laughs]. So I would absolutely say yes.
Kat may have had a near-death experience in the Season 23 premiere that led to her decision to leave the NYPD, but near-death doesn’t mean killed off! Fans can be excited that Hyder is so enthusiastic about potentially returning to SVU someday, especially in light of how she was written off and her comments after the news broke last summer.
She certainly has a point about SVU characters always having the possibility to come back as long as they weren’t killed off. The show not only brought back Chris Meloni after nearly ten years, but also gave him an Elliot Stabler spinoff. Of course, Kat didn’t have 12 years on the show before her departure like Stabler did, but Season 23 alone brought back a lot of familiar faces.
The 500th episode featured the returns of Danny Pino as Nick Amaro, Tamara Tunie as Melinda Warner, and Dann Florek as Donald Cragen. (Florek also appeared as Cragen on Organized Crime last season.) In the second half of Season 23, Demore Barnes also returned for an emotional episode as Christian Garland, who landed a new job after leaving the NYPD that left the door open for more potential appearances.
Barnes was written out at the same time as Jamie Gray Hyder, so his return in Season 23 could be a good sign for Hyder to reprise her role as Kat in Season 24 or beyond. There are no guarantees, but her enthusiasm at least proves that she’d love to return and work with her former co-stars all over again. Losing both Kat and Garland marked a major shift for SVU, and it would be interesting to see her reactions to the new state of the squad.
For now, you can look forward to Jamie Gray Hyder’s voice work as Hawkgirl in Green Lantern: Beware My Power, and revisit her seasons of Law & Order: SVU streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription and/or a Hulu subscription. As for Season 24, SVU will return to NBC with the first new episode of the fall on Thursday, September 22 at 9 p.m. ET.
