Dylan McDermott reinvents modern gangster on 'Law & Order'

Dylan McDermott says his experiences as a child and later as a waiter helped him reinvent the modern-day gangster on “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”

NEW YORK -- The DNA for Dylan McDermott to reinvent the modern-day gangster began at childhood and carried through to his struggling young actor days, when the “Law and Order: Organized Crime” star says he was “surrounded by the ilk” of unsavory types.

McDermott, who grew up in New York, waited tables and tended bar, often serving local mobsters, where he observed their capricious behavior, he says. And when he was younger, he had an even closer relationship.

“My mother’s boyfriend was a bank robber when I was growing up,” McDermott told The Associated Press.

“They all end up either dead or in prison. So, there’s no good stories there. He got his end, and it was not — not good.”