During the 2025 holiday season, Corey Cott certainly proved his range as an actor, going from playing a lovestruck former Broadway star in his latest Hallmark Christmas movie to playing a New York City detective on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
That versatility is paying off, because NBC just promoted Cott to series regular on “SVU,” Deadline reported on January 13, 2026. One person we know will be particularly excited for Cott is his “The Snow Must Go On” co-star Heather Hemmens.
Corey Cott Joins the ‘SVU’ Team as Detective Jake Griffin
NBCCott made his debut on the crime drama during the second episode of season 27, Deadline reported. He’s playing Detective Jake Griffin, “who has friends in pretty high places,” which doesn’t exactly sit well with Captain Olivia Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay.
Throughout the season, Griffin does “everything he can to prove to Benson that he’s cut from the same cloth as the rest of the 16th Precinct,” per NBC. The rest of the elite squad of NYC detectives are played by Ice-T, who plays Benson’s second-in-command, Seargant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, as well as Kelli Giddish, Peter Scanavino, Kevin Kane, and Aimé Donna Kelly.
A “passionate and whip-smart investigator,” Detective Griffin has already earned the nickname “Batman” on the show because of “the many criminals he has taken down over the years,” NBC said.
Heather Hemmens Hopes Corey Cott Will Still Keep Making Hallmark Movies
Cott, who has starred in a Hallmark movie each of the last four years, was the perfect fit for his 2025 Christmas movie, playing a former Broadway star who helps out with a small town musical. In real life, Cott did get his start in theater.
After graduating from the prestigious Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, he spent two years on Broadway playing Jack Kelly in Disney’s “Newsies,” according to IMDb. Right after that role finished, Cott starred opposite Vanessa Hudgens in the Broadway revivial of “Gigi” and then in the Tony Award winning musical “Bandstand.”
That theater background came in handy for “The Snow Must Go On,” and definitely impressed Hemmens, who told EntertainmentNow ahead of the movie’s premiere, “Corey is the most entertaining (co-star), hands-down. He’s fantastic.”
“Dancing, singing, acting, I was just entertained on set,” she gushed, and then joked, “I was like, ‘I’m gonna sit back and let him do all the work here!'”
Though Cott will clearly have his hands full with “SVU,” Hemmens hopes he’ll still carve out time for more rom-coms like “Making Waves” and “Christmas on Cherry Lane,” noting, “He’s relatively new to the Hallmark family, and I hope he’s here to stay.”
