How Do Actors Play Corpses on Shows Like Law and Order?

After so many hours marathoning Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, viewers eventually start to wonder: How do actors convincingly play corpses? And do they get breaks to breathe?

Luckily, Ask Us is here to find the answer. It turns out it’s not easy to control twitching eyelids, a tiny breath or even, in a tight close­up, a pulsing vein, which is why some actors specialize.

While giving Us a set tour for NBC’s St. Denis Medical, cast member Mekki Leeper recalled speaking to one such cadaver king: “The actor told me he auditions for corpses all the time and always books it.”

The pro has a foolproof strategy for determining when to breathe. “He holds his breath for as long as he can and listens to the scene over and over,” Leeper explained. “When a main character speaks, he knows that person is going to be on camera. That’s when he quickly takes a breath.”

Though it takes skill, lots of folks seem to have a death wish. Mariska Hargitay told Seth Meyers that stars are always petitioning her for a Law & Order: SVU guest spot — as a lifeless body.

“All the famous people, you know what they want? To be a dead body,” she said during an October interview. “It’s so weird.”

Meyers however, didn’t think it was so weird. He revealed that he was among the celebs who had asked to play dead on the NBC show.

“I wanted to be a dead body. During the 2007-2008 writers strike, I met all these Law & Order writers, and I was like, ‘I wanna do a cameo, but I just wanna be a dead body,’” Meyers recalled. “And they were like, ‘Oh my God, we’d love to have you on the show.’ But I was like, ‘OK, but I’m a dead person.’

His agent sent over a script, but Meyers was disappointed to find that he would have lines to memorize. “I was like, ‘I don’t want lines, I just wanna be a dead person in the park.’”

Hargitay revealed the same thing happened with another A-lister recently.

“This just happened to me with a big supermodel … I found out that she loved my show. So I said, ‘Oh my gosh!’ I went to the writers, I said, ‘Can she be on the show?’ And she said she wanted to be a dead body, but then I said, ‘No, no, we have this great part for you,’” Hargitay recalled. “I call her back, I said, ‘Listen we got it. We’re gonna get you on the show.’ She goes, ‘Oh no! No, no, no, no, no, I wanna be a dead body.’”

She quipped, “It happens all the time! Why don’t these famous people want lines?”