It’s no secret that Vincent D’Onofrio is one of the best working actors around. Whether he’s crushing it as Kingpin in Daredevil or playing the eccentric Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, he always brings a ferocity to a role. Recently, he revealed that the latter role was rewarding but definitely not worth the money.
D’Onofrio appeared on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, and he talked a lot about working on the show, including how the role was rewarding and difficult on his personal life at the same time.
“Law and Order was so rewarding because I was a better actor at the end of it but [it was] definitely not worth the money.”
D’Onofrio said the role put a lot of pressure on him and his family, but it did make him better at acting, “which is a pretty good reward.”
The actor played Goren for the whole run of the show, from 2001 to 2011. He was often called difficult, and in a 2004 profile, The New York Times said he had the “gently intimidating authority one might expect of a former nightclub bouncer.”
“I like to stick my nose in everybody’s business,” he said at the time. The pressure he was talking about was probably due to the show’s brutal filming schedule that would last up to 14 hours a day.
On Nov. 11 of that year, he fainted and was taken to the hospital during a rehearsal for the show.
“I work a lot of hours and I get paid well for it,” he said in the Times profile. “I wouldn’t dare put myself in the martyr position. I think my body just said: ‘Too bad. We’re going to rest for awhile.”‘