When you’re the umpteenth person to come through that revolving door known as Law & Order, the question is what kind of entrance will it be this time? For Jesse L. Martin, who succeeded Benjamin Bratt several weeks ago, the answer was not sneaking in quietly, but making a big, bold, grand statement.

“It wasn’t necessarily a conscious choice. The story kind of dictated it,” says Martin, whose self-assured Detective Edward Green appeared in the September 22nd season opener, involving a mass shooting in Central Park. “In my first episode, I was put in the very strange position of having a very difficult case to solve. This guy was a mass murderer, so I came in with all guns loaded, so to speak, for which I’m glad. It was a nice little catalyst to get the character going, and now, I feel like I can’t go backwards. It’s only going to get bigger.”

It’s a Monday morning on the L&O set on Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, a few weeks after his debut. Martin has just finished a scene in which he and his partner -- Jerry Orbach’s Detective Lennie Briscoe -- are hovering over a comatose victim in a hospital room. Martin suitable sober-faced, but minutes later, back in his dressing room -- the one Bratt used to occupy -- he’s all smiles and energy, and full of thankfulness. The actor repeatedly describes himself as “grateful” about various showcase roles he’s had -- the computer jock Tom Collins in the original cast of the Broadway musical “Rent”, Ally McBeal’s singing doctor boyfriend, the baseball-playing alien in The X-Files, and, now, Edward Green.

“This is such a great job that I’m just like beside myself every day when I show up here”, says Martin, who downs his breakfast (three hard-boiled eggs) as he chats. “Apparently, Dick Wolf had seen me on Ally McBeal, and he’d known about me from doing Broadway, particularly Rent, and I pretty much approached him first about the role, because I had heard that there was a possibility that they would be needing a replacement. I went to him as soon as I found out and just sort of, begged, I guess would be the word, and luckily, it paid off.

As “L&O” detectives go, Green is unusually forceful, especially in interrogations -- Martin’s favorite scenes so far. His manner can make Briscoe bristle -- as when the newcomer called his partner “Old Spice” in the season opener. “They’re certainly taking their time getting to know each other. They’re wary of each other”, Martin says. “It’s not necessarily a negative thing, but he’s heard some things about me, such as getting written up for excessive force a couple of times. So, Lennie may be a little bit more wary of me and I am of him.

“I look at Lennie Briscoe as somebody I can really sort of depend on and trust and learn a lot from, but I also have my own ideas, and I can’t be swayed from them,” Martin says. Another relationship with intriguing potential is that between Green and S. Epatha Merkerson’s Lt. Anita Van Buren. “Ed Green really has a strong admiration for Van Buren, because he knows how difficult it is to be a minority in the force, and she’s done so well for herself,” Martin says. “But in the same light, again, I have my own ideas about how things should be handled, and if she gives me any opposition, I have to stand my ground”.

Across the hallway, Orbach, weighs in on his new TV partner -- the third he’s had in his seven seasons with the series. “We’ve written in some antagonism. There’s a generational difference, an ethnic difference, some difference in thinking,” Orbach says. Orbach, who keeps a large photo of himself and Bratt on his desk, has warm words for his new co-star. “The working condition is terrific, because Jesse is a child of the theater”, he says. “He understands teamwork. The plays the thing. That’s when it works well, when somebody’s not worried about who’s got more lines or who gets a close-up -- all those stupid things that a lot of stupid actors go through.”

The 30-year-old Martin, a native of Virginia, discovered the stage after his family moved to Buffalo when he was about 6, a “shy child” with a heavy southern accent. His fourth-grade teacher corralled him into joining an after-school acting program where he stood out playing the pastor in “The Golden Goose”. “I come from the South, so my idea was Southern Baptist preacher”, he recalls with a laugh. “That’s the way I played it, which was a shock to everybody, including the teacher. But, to make a long story short, it was a big hit with the kids in school. I sort of came out of my shell a little bit.”

After graduating from New York University, Martin toured the country, doing Shakespearean theater with John Houseman’s The Acting Company -- which he followed up with extensive New York theater credits. On television, he had a starring role on the short-lived “413 Hope St.” then played the hunky doctor lover of Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart). “It’s an incredible cast, and I love, love, love working with Calista. She’s an absolute sweetheart, a really great person,” Martin says. After spotting Martin in that role, David Duchovny cast him in an X-Files episode he wrote and was directing.

“This wasn’t an easy shoot. We did night shoots for a week and a half playing baseball in the desert in the cold, and I never once had a reason to complain”, Martin says. “A baseball-playing alien? When do you get to do stuff like that?” If there’s a “next step” in Martin’s career, it would be the film world, he says. “I am desperately trying to play Marvin Gaye on the big screen”, says Martin, whose mother was a huge fan of the late singer. “I’ve always loved the music, but I started to learn a lot more about him personally after he died. And people come to me and say “You kind of look like Marvin Gaye, especially on film”.

But Martin’s priority these days is “L&O”. “I feel like I owe Dick Wolf the world, cause it’s a job that any actor would kill for, to be on one of the best shows on television, and in New York City”, says Martin, who’s not a big fan of Los Angeles. “There’s no better job, and I got it!”

copyright 1999 Bergen Record Corp.