‘Law & Order SVU’: Who Mariska Hargitay Called a Kindred Spirit After Chris Meloni Left
Law & Order SVU saw Mariska Hargitay forming a bond with her co-workers that would span for two decades. But there was one crew member who encouraged Hargitay when she felt the show might’ve faced its darkest hour.
Mariska Hargitay knew this showrunner would be right for ‘Law & Order SVU’
The 13th season of Law & Order SVU saw the series go through many extreme changes. The show lost its lead Chris Meloni due to a contract dispute. This laid responsibility on Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson to anchor the series going forward.
At this time, SVU would also be getting a new showrunner. Warren Leight would be chosen to head the show, who already had experience writing for Dick Wolf’s franchise before.
Although there was much to be worried about going into the new season, Leight’s involvement immediately put Hargitay at ease. She was confident that the series would be in good hands.
“Prior to Warren’s arrival, I was doing a lot of thinking about how and if I’d move forward with the show,” she once told The Hollywood Reporter. “Chris was my partner for 12 years and we were in this groove together. I didn’t know how the show was going to continue and how my character was going to continue. and the prospect of working with him was very exciting to me. I had actually always wanted to work with him. Then, I met with him and he just felt like such a kindred spirit. There was this huge exhale and I just thought, ‘Oh, oh, he gets it.’ He had such a different sensibility and ideas for what this show could be.”
For instance, Leight was the showrunner who offered the idea of Olivia Benson having a child. This was a plot point that Hargitay wanted to explore for a long time, showing Leight’s willingness for fresh ideas.
“He pitched me this beautiful story, based on a detective that adopted a baby,” she remembered. “That of course became my character adopting baby Noah. I wanted Olivia to have a baby on the show for so long. There were episodes about it, which ended with social workers not approving my character adopting a child because the work is so high-risk. Then Warren told me the story about this police officer who adopted this baby, and we both sat there with tears streaming down our faces. I felt like he understood exactly what I was looking for.”
Warren Leight felt that Chris Meloni leaving ‘Law & Order SVU’ worked better for Mariska Hargitay
Leight might’ve been one of the few people who saw how the show could change for the better after Meloni’s departure. In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, however, he recalled how difficult it was running the show without Elliot Stabler.6
“The first year was very hard. There was so much animosity and loss about Chris’ departure,” Leight said. “There were a lot of people on crew who really wanted to see things change, and then there were people who just wanted to do exactly what we had been doing.”
But Leight saw that the show and its audience could now get to know Olivia Benson in a way that they didn’t before. In a way, Meloni’s Elliot might’ve actually been holding Olivia back in certain areas.
“Her character, when I got there, was stuck in this sad apartment and was eating spaghetti out of the can over the sink. In a weird way, Elliot’s departure freed her up,” Leight said. “It’s not a diss on Chris or Elliot, but that character was in a long-term relationship that prevented her from having the kind of relationships she has since developed. In a way, realizing when he left that she was in many ways the most experienced detective and the most vital detective in that squad room empowered her.”
The growth of Hargitay’s character also helped evolve the actor’s career. She found herself becoming more active behind the scenes, becoming a producer and directing a couple of SVU episodes herself.
“I’m very happy both of those things happened. I think the audience was ahead of us on that. They wanted that for her – to see Mariska get stronger and stronger – and her producing role and directing role is a great thing. Nobody hands you those opportunities in television,” Leight said. “Her character earned where her character’s life is now, and Mariska earned where she is now in terms of her role on the show.”
