Twenty-six years ago, Law & Order: SVU came to life on NBC. It’s still running, about to kick off its 27th season on September 25. It’s now the longest-running live-action primetime series in U.S. TV history.

None of which Susan Green and I could have anticipated when we heard that Dick Wolf was going to give us access to write The Law & Order SVU: Unofficial Companion in 2008. As I like to say now, our book, which came out in 2009 and was compiled in 2008, was meant to be the definitive, whole cloth inclusion of the series. (Wolf let us on the set and even wrote our foreword, and it was a wild time — I had to take vacation time from my full-time job at a magazine to spend time on the set, which was then based in New Jersey. A white van picked us up with the extras every day from the West Side of Manhattan, and off we went until production shut down for the day.) Anyway, we figured, eh, we might need to add another chapter or two to cover later seasons — no way would NBC have both L&O and SVU on for extended runs. No way!

Shows what we knew.

Susan, who has since passed, was my entry for the book. I’d never been published this way before, and she and I had hit it off when I interviewed her with Kevin Courrier about the book they’d co-edited, The Law & Order Unofficial Companion. Kevin had opted out of doing more, and she asked if I wanted in. Well, she didn’t have to ask twice.

Back in 2020, when Law & Order: Organized Crime brought back original SVU hothead Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) I felt like it was a good time to share the unedited (basically) interview I had with him for the book. There are excerpts from this interview in the book, but that was the first time I’d put out the entire thing, more or less. So now that SVU is heading into another historic season, I figured it might be time to share the interview I had with the half of the dynamic duo — the most impressive woman on TV I know of — Mariska Hargitay!

It’s also worth noting this fact: Of all the actors and crew I spoke to for this book, only one ever congratulated Susan and me on the accomplishment — and even sent flowers the day of the party. Here they are, with a fun note signed by “Olivia Benson”:

The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion is a little dated now, I get it. The book’s 16th anniversary is Sept. 1, after all. But it was a joy to create, and I had such a great time being so thorough with a show I loved so much. I’m a sucker for behind-the-scenes TV and movies, after all (my first novel, Tune in Tomorrow, is a funny fantasy that’s all about the backstage shenanigans of a TV series). And I bet if you’ve read this far, so are you. So let’s check in with Mariska, circa 2008 — and if you’re inclined to do so, go grab an Unofficial Companion! There’s still stuff in there (including pictures) you just can’t get anywhere else.

Thanks for reading, and … dun dun!

What led you to this role in the first place?
This role – this was one of those gifts, it’s kind of a great story. As an actor, you’re constantly auditioning and trying to morph yourself into something else and try to make yourself fit and work, work, work. When I finished ER, I had a development deal with Dreamworks. And I was creating my own show; it was a drama, but I wanted to do comedy, so it had a dramedy feel-ish, and I’d been working on it for about 10 months with a writer and the network, drafts, drafts, drafts. And then this script came in to read, my agent sent to me and said, “Mariska, this is a pilot, I don’t know if you’re going to like it, it’s very dark,” and it was one of those things I read and it was a done deal from the moment I read it. I loved it, I felt so connected to it; I knew that this was my role somehow.

I didn’t know that I was going to get it, but it was a fit I felt and I had such a safety and a confidence and a hope. And I read it and I loved it and thought it was ahead of its time, I thought it was courageous, and educational, and brave and compelling and never done before even though it was part of a franchise we hadn’t seen this before and the fact that they were willing to deal with these issues on TV that were so scary was so exciting, because it wasn’t like anything else on TV and I think for me after coming off ER, if you do one thing you want to do the exact opposite, the idea of a powerful, fearless, flawed, complex woman was so – it was a dream in that she was complex and compassionate and empathetic character that I felt wasn’t shoved into a box. Not in a one-dimensional – she’s a cop! Or one dimensional – she’s a doctor! You have to shut down and do your job!

I thought it was such an opportunity to do it differently and to marry in what being a woman is, and the way we do things which is very differently than a man. Man is linear – Elliot is linear, straight, Marine, focused, what you see is what you get. He has a clarity of discipline and focus and – literal. Women approach things so differently and the fact that they allowed me all of that with being somebody who has chosen this incredible, frightening, challenging, painful, difficult career and I thought it was so complex and multilayered and different than anything else, and obviously that’s ironic because Dick Wolf has been so story-driven, and he built this beautiful character for me from the pilot and gave me this incredible powerful history that informs every word out of my mouth, every thing I do and am. It was so exciting to play this on one side driven, focused, feel the fear do it anyway, brave, courageous, she is obsessed with justice to a fault, and on the other side this empathetic, compassionate female mama woman that’s so fragile and sensitive inside. It’s good stuff.

As I understand it was random that you and Chris were paired together, right?
No, it was a great story. Did he tell you the story?

He did, I just want to hear your side.
It was just great, so great. The story was we both were there at the screen test, and I was told there were three men for the role. Three men, three women. So I walk into the audition, into the waiting room and I know the other two guys … one was Tim Matheson. I was told by my agent – they represented this guy John Slattery as well – they told me that John Slattery was going to be there, and he’s their client, and he’s so lovely. And I see the other two girls and they’re lovely or whatever, and Chris walks in, and I see this guy who’s all street New York, cocky – everything that he is now he was then. He walked in and I jumped up and I go, “Slattery!” And he goes, without missing a beat, “Meloni!”

So we talked and we laughed and everything and then he had this tattoo, and I started talking about that because and I’m a Catholic and whatever,  non-denominational Christian and he has this big tattoo of Jesus he’s wearing I can see through his wife beater [T-shirt], and I’m like, “Do you believe in Jesus?” And we’re having this big conversation, and he’s like, “No, I just admire his commitment.” Well, he and I from minute one were like all this shtick, and laughing and people were like, “Who are they and why are they talking?” And we just – it was nonstop chitchat couldn’t stop talking. So we’re all waiting around in the room and all of a sudden someone comes out and pairs us up. And they go, “… And Mariska and Chris.” And I thought [laughs] “I want to be with that guy!” Because we already had a thing, and I knew the other two guys and it would have been fine, but I wanted that guy.

So Chris is telling a story and they call us in: “You guys come in.” We go down the hallway and get to the room, and he’s not done with the story. He just stands there and finishes his story. Because every actor you get in those situations and you’re so deferential and nervous and polite and he just owned it and stood there and finished telling the story and then he’s like, “Hey, howareya.” Great stuff.  So then we did the scene and the rest is history and it was – it was just a done deal. It’s a thing about the chemistry, you got it or you don’t. In a room with the other guys, I knew the other two and I just gravitated to Chris. So much of it is luck. It’s that thing. I don’t know why it’s that thing; we just had a similar sensibility.

How long did it take for you and Chris to really understand each other’s rhythms, acting-wise?
It’s been ten years of getting to know each other for me. Immediately we had a simpatico and an I can play, you can play, you’re as fast as me. So in that sense I’d say it was immediate. But on a deeper level, each year it continues to get deeper and I still feel it’s continuing to happen that way.

I know I grow and change every year, and he does too and trying new things – that’s an interesting question, but I never take – half of my answer is immediately, and the other half of my answer is I never took it for granted because I always watch and he changes things up and I never really know what he’s going to do and that’s exciting, still. I think that we have gone through so many different phases of our relationship and it is such a complex relationship – we’re so close and we’re so connected and we know exactly what the other one thinks and feels and there’s times I want to kill him, and he wants to kill me, and it’s like brother/sister, husband/wife, lovers without the sex but there’s that, two kids playing – there’s so many dynamics to our relationship that always changes and people can never figure it out.

But being with someone every day you spend more time with him that your husband or your wife – it’s loaded. It’s a loaded, intense, respectful – but we’re both growing and in ten years we’re different people than when we started.

He’s very linear and specific, like you said – that was his sense, that it hit a stride at 4, 5 years.
If you add that, I’d say four, five years. Four, five years to click into another level of acting rhythms, I agree with that. Four or five years. But I’m saying we had an immediate simpatico but it took – I think four or five years, at the beginning a lot of the chemistry was luck and then it grew into more of a crafted thing and an evolved thing; I know exactly what he’s saying. I agree with that. Female/male answers.

What did they tell you about Benson before you took the role? Did you get a description outside the script?
No. The breakdowns, whatever, 30s cop, product of a rape, yeah. No. Not much more than that. I read it and just connected to it and saw there were so many layers to it.

My first audition I think I read for the casting director and Dick [Wolf, show creator], and one of the things that was so exciting was I went in and Dick was there and I didn’t know who he was – I mean, I knew he was a big producer. But I knew he’d written this pilot and so I remember when I went in and he gave me a note, and I said, “That’s a good note,” and I told him, and something clicked [in me] and he’s like “Aw, thanks.” And we had this immediate chemistry thing, too.

And the second time when I got a call back, I came back and they call it a “work session” before you go to network, and they want to see you again and make sure. And I walked in and I saw this beautiful girl in the hallway, so I panicked. And I walked in and I said, “Let me explain something to you. This is my role. So you can tell her, outside, that she’s going home now. Because I’m telling you, this is my part and I am so doing this part.” And he laughed, and it turned out that the girl was Millie Avital, who was the guest star in the pilot. But I didn’t know!

So he was having another reading to get ready for the network; he’d already decided in his mind – because no one else was there – her. I’ve never done that before, either, to have the nerve to go, “This is my part.” He just laughed. I’d never felt so connected to anything. I felt – it just felt right. Something said, “I have to do this, I have to do this.”

So over the years have you waited for the writers to come up with more details about Benson, or have you contributed to her development?
Different, different. Always throwing around ideas and what if, what if, but for the most part, those kind of storylines, that’s theirs that they’re adding and crafting. That was an utter surprise [when Benson referred to a boyfriend who had HIV/AIDS]. Sometimes Neal [Baer, showrunner] will call me and say “What do you think about this” or “Do you like that” and I’m pretty game for anything so long as it’s true to the character.

How did you adapt to the length of the working day? Were you prepared?
Not even a little. It was my dream actually to move to NY and to live here – I’d been born and raised in LA, a LA actor, but my teacher said, “Mariska, you have to go to New York to do the theater, and my friend Katherine Chalfont is in the theater also, and the irony was I had come back from New York just before I read for SVU and told my agent and declared I was going to move to New York to do theater, because I had just seen Stockard Channing, Zoe Caldwell, Chita Rivera, all these plays, Elizabeth Ashley – the woman who had just done Happy Sailing – Brian Dennehy.

So I’d just come back and said I’m moving to New York, I want to be a stage actress. And then this part came along and it was like, in two weeks you’re moving to New York. I wasn’t going to do stage, but it was this very funny thing. Just to live life, because living in Los Angeles is so isolating, just being in your car, and something about being on the street in New York changes a person, which it absolutely did. But I got here and I was utterly overwhelmed, leaving my family and my friends that I had built this community with, the weather, which I was not prepared for, shooting exteriors, working 15, 16, 17, 18 hour days in the beginning and all of a sudden this is my life and I have no other life, couldn’t even go out to dinner, it was just all SVU all the time and dark and depressing and sexual assaults and rape, and the show hadn’t found its voice and I was completely overwhelmed, and got really sad about the third year in.

The first year I was all hey, cool! And then as it went on I wasn’t dating anyone, I just didn’t have a life here, it was unbalanced and depressing. I couldn’t take Februarys and Marches and the light here – I’m so light sensitive – be careful what you wish for. This was all I ever wanted, and I was miserable. I was so sad, alone and all of that. Even my work was suffering, I just wasn’t happy and well, I didn’t hit it, I wasn’t flying at the material. There was a darkness, I can see it in the photos when I look back at the time.

So what snapped you out of it?
My husband [Peter Hermann]. Meeting my husband. You got a season change and the phoenix rises up from the ashes and you find a new way to invest. Buck up, that’s what New York does, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get to it. I had a job to do, and nobody cared how I felt, so it was like, get on. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – it was really that thing, nobody cares if you’re if you’re upset, nobody cares if you’re sick, you have a job to do and let’s do it.

And I became like a soldier. And I always say that New York made me feel like I could do anything because there were days where you think after eight hours, I’m so exhausted, I’m so exhausted, then after 10 hours you go, I’m done, I can’t do it. And it doesn’t stop and it’s so relentless. Like the Marines to me. It doesn’t end, it’s going to keep on going, so just figure it out. Work it out. You’re so lucky, you’re acting. You’re on one of the best shows on TV, with the smartest writing, and then Neal came and it changed. I think Neal came, when Neal came everything changed. Neal knew my work and knew what I was capable of and started writing for me I think much more and I had – that’s what I mean, I hadn’t found my stride, I wasn’t inspired. And I have to be inspired.

So there were so many things happening at once but when Neal came I started getting excited about the material and the possibility and it was an energy shift and energy change for the show and everything changed when Neal came. And the show was still finding its way. We’d had a writer that was really kind of a negative – I don’t want to say negative force, but [long pause] we hadn’t found our voice, we had a second writer that didn’t work out, didn’t know our voices, and nobody was doing well. I thought there wasn’t a communication between writer and the acting under his leadership, I’ll say, and he was new, so now we are what we are. We’re a well-oiled machine, we own it, we’re inspired, we care. We know what we’re trying to be and we all have the same vision and at the beginning we didn’t have that, and we didn’t have the voice, and the show hadn’t found its voice, and the director was changing every week, there was no consistency. Dick wasn’t really here. We had no leader, we had no vision.

So that’s what I’m saying, it was changing, some of the shows were like [makes a face] weren’t good. And lot of turnover with writers. And then Neal came and brought amazing writers and all of a sudden we all got excited and he’s a great leader and accessible. I can get that man on the phone 24 hours a day. That’s the first thing. And as an actor, creatively, he has an excitement of a 7-year-old. He will call me every week, there’s this beautiful collaboration, and everything started to gel, and then everyone was more invested, and then it was so fun to come to work, and then Chris and I found our stride and everyone knew our voices and then we chimed in more with what we wanted to do and then we knew what we were. It all just – it takes time. It takes time.

You met Peter Hermann on the set. What was that like, playing out this whole relationship in front of everybody?
I’ve always been the welcome committee to SVU, I’m always like “Hi! Welcome Wagon!” Neal always calls me to take people under a wing, make them feel comfortable. But Chris and I are so connected – and I hadn’t even heard it, because when we’re together sometimes people feel “outside,” just because there’s so much inside jokes and so much history and we don’t really have to have a conversation, we can just have a look and we know – you’ve seen it. In a way there’s nobody I’m closer to, after every scene we have to discuss things, so – he and I are always each other’s focus, mutually.

Peter came on [in the role of Trevor Langan] and I was like, “Wow.” I was very attracted to him. He came on and I started talking to him in a scene and I made a joke, because he’s German, I said, “So, you’re a Kraut!” and he goes, “That’s funny.” And Chris is sitting right there. And we’re laughing and I said something else and he just shut me down – there was this energy between us, he and I and it was charged. And so everyone was like a little bit like, “What’s with them?” and in all five years they’d never seen me with anyone like this. Then it went on for like three months or so, this flirty checking it out, he didn’t work here that often, and then we started dating and the rest is history.

Read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion‘s chat with Christopher Meloni from 2008!

Grab your copy of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion today!

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