It’s easy to underestimate Danny Pino. Smart, handsome, soft-spoken (at least in his roles), he laid down more that 150 episodes of Cold Case–look at that again, 150–before the show went south in 2010, and almost before you knew it another incarnation of his calm and careful cop showed up on the casting merry-go-round that is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, gradually taking the place of departing Christopher Meloni. Now he’s edging up towards fifty of those episodes, playing Detective Nick Amaro, and somehow or other he gets overlooked, often as not, when you see the short list of Latinos playing good-guy characters on TV–which he’s done, week in and week out, for the better part of ten years. (He’s been nominated for an Alma Award three times–never won–and for three Imagen Awards, with one win for his SVU work. The other five noms were for Cold Case and…no love.)
So here’s to Danny…and here’s a short interview with him from NBC.com about his character on Law & Order: SVU, click here.
