{alltv} D'Onofrio back on duty in more relaxed 'Law'

How difficult was it to persuade Vincent D'Onofrio to return to Law & Order: Criminal Intent after leaving the show more than a year ago? Not very.

"All it took was (creator) Dick Wolf asking," D'Onofrio says between setups at the Chelsea Pier Soundstage in Manhattan. He is finishing up Episode 3 of Season 10, which begins Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) on USA Network.

After handing off his detective work to Jeff Goldblum, D'Onofrio left the series early in Season 9. He had been hospitalized briefly for nervous exhaustion in the fourth season but soldiered on for another five years.

"I liked doing the show," D'Onofrio says, "but after working on it for so many years, I did need a break. I tried for a long time to get off it, but I didn't want to leave anybody in the lurch."

But finally, there was an opportunity. "Dick eventually figured out a way to segue me out," says the actor, 51. "I have so much respect for Jeff Goldblum that I thought it was going to fly. But it didn't work out as great as they thought it would."

Now D'Onofrio's Detective Bobby Goren is back to figuring out the way criminals think. "But things have changed here," he explains. "We're not doing as many episodes (just eight) or working as many hours. They found a way to do it so it's more comfortable for Kate (Kathyrn Erbe, who plays his partner Alexandra Eames) and me."

He adds: "Mainly we're making shows like we did during the early seasons. They're straight-out crime dramas, with Goren being very quirky and doing things that surprise people. We got away from that a little bit in the later years."

Reports suggest that Criminal Intent will end after this season, but D'Onofrio says the final decision is yet to be made.

"Some people say it's the last season," he acknowledges. "Some people say it's not.

"If they have to end it, it will end," he says. "We have no control. But if they can figure out a way to make money off it, it'll stay on the air." And if it continues? "I'd stay with it."

D'Onofrio insists he shares only one quality with his character, Goren. "I have good intuition about people," he says. "I'm pretty good at it in my personal life."

Age brings confidence

D'Onofrio admires Goren's unpredictability. "But he's a little too dark for me at my age." The Brooklyn-born actor adds: "Maybe when I was young, it was OK to be like that. Now it's a bit too much. I've learned to let everything go and leave it at work."

He elaborates. "When you're a young artist, you're struggling to achieve all these things, and you wrap yourself into it and you're in this bubble. When you get older, your confidence is much greater, and your ability is much greater, and you're able to rely on the fact that (your acting ability) is going to be there when you pick it back up. So you can lay it down and go home and not think about it."

He credits his wife, Dutch model Carin van der Donk, with helping him reach this point. "I was kind of a loner, very introverted and pretty socially inept for a long period," he says. "Everything changed when I met my wife. She allowed me to be me, with all my flaws. To know someone truly loved me for who I was ... that relationship has been going on and on, and it's great. When you have that, you can focus more on the artistic things."

They have two sons, Elias, 11, and Luka, 3. D'Onofrio also has a daughter, Leila, 19, with Australian actress Greta Scacchi. "She's making films at the Sydney Film School," he says. "She's interested in directing and writing."

Finding his niche

When D'Onofrio was that age, he had no specific ambition. "I used to put on shows for the neighborhood with my three sisters," he says, recalling his early years in Florida with his divorced mother. "We collected canned food for families in Vietnam. In order to see the show, people would have to bring cans. But I never took performing seriously."

After graduating from high school, D'Onofrio went on a road trip with his best friend. "We drove from Florida to California," he says. "I ended up in Colorado, working construction and laboring jobs."

Eventually he went to New York. "I didn't know what I wanted to do," he says, "but deep down, I knew it would be something artistic. In New York, I learned to respect the arts more. I started to go to (acting) classes, I studied, and I took it seriously."

Theater work led to a starring role in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. Since then, D'Onofrio has appeared in nearly 70 films, including Mystic Pizza, JFK, Men in Black and the recent crime drama Kill the Irishman.

In the upcoming comedic drama Chlorine, he and Kyra Sedgwick play "a husband and wife trying to keep up with the Joneses," he says. "It's about the stress of what's going on these days with the recession and how families are trying to survive."

Don't Go in the Woods, a horror musical that he directed and helped write, is due later this year. He is producing Mall, a film version of Eric Bogosian's 2001 same-titled novel. "Eric used to be on the show, and he asked me to read it," D'Onofrio says. "He thought it might be a good idea to make a film of it. So I developed it with some friends, and we're casting it now."

He also wants to direct and star in Johnny and Me, about a father/daughter relationship. "It's not so much that I like being in charge. I just like being involved in the whole process."