Chris Meloni’s Wife Said ‘Law & Order SVU’ Was Hard to Watch: ‘It Takes Its Toll’

Law & Order SVU was a show that Chris Meloni’s wife Sherman Williams found hard to stomach at times. To Williams, it seemed that some aspects of the series hit too close to home.

What Sherman Williams felt about ‘Law & Order SVU’

As good as Law & Order SVU has been to Chris Meloni, the show also required Meloni to constantly tackle some heavy subject matter. The grim realities Meloni had to deal with as Elliot Stabler, coupled with the show’s long hours, could be both physically and mentally taxing.

“Law & Order bleeds it out of you, five days a week, sometimes six, 14 to 15 hours a day—eating lunch standing up, using your time in your trailer to study or make phone calls,” Meloni once told Your Tango.

For Meloni, a lot of exercise often served as a reliable outlet to help with the stress he felt from the show. Pacing himself and not getting too caught up in his character also stopped Meloni from being overwhelmed.

“De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I’ve realized I can’t operate at that level of intensity. That’s okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself,” Meloni said.

But even as just a viewer, Meloni’s wife Williams had perhaps a more difficult time dealing with SVU’s subject matter. To watch the show, Williams had to focus on all the negative parts of the world she usually tried to avoid.

“The show takes a toll; it’s hard for me to watch it,” she said. “If Chris wasn’t on it, I don’t know that I’d watch. I turn off a lot of news and don’t read many newspaper articles.”

Chris Meloni explained the secret to his long marriage to Sherman Williams

Meloni and Williams have been married for 28 years now, and dated even longer than that. the Oz star confided that he met Williams while filming an HBO series. Williams was a production designer at the time, whose striking looks caught his attention. She had a boyfriend when Meloni first approached her, but the two still kept in touch. When they both found themselves single a few years later, they finally found the opportunity to act on their feelings.

“On our first date, we went to three parties, given by three sets of my friends,” Williams recalled. “The first was in West Hollywood. Every guy there was gay. Chris passed with flying colors. Next we went to a party given by Beverly Hills snootballs. Chris kept his manners in check and held his own. Then we went to a costume designer’s party in the Hills, where we drank beers from a tub on the porch. And I thought: I can take him anywhere.”

Meloni and Williams would tie the knot in 1995, and have been married ever since. In an interview with People not too long ago, Meloni gave insight into why their marriage was still going strong.

“We’re doing good. It’s her patience with me, and I really mean that. She’s allowed me to grow at my speed, because she’s always been more mature and more levelheaded in many ways,” Meloni said. “She paints and I go in her studio, and it just makes me happy. We have her work all over the house. She wants to buy art, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want that. I want yours.'”

It helped that Meloni didn’t really feel the decades go by while married to his wife.

“It doesn’t feel like 27 years,” he said. “When the hell did that happen?”