‘Law & Order: SVU’ Mariska Hargitay Once Shared the Episode That Wrecked Her
Law & Order SVU has had plenty of intense episodes. But according to Hargitay herself, there was one episode of the series that was harder to get through than most.
Mariska Hargitay once shared this episode dragged up a lot of old pain
Very few Law & Order episodes struck a chord with Hargitay like “Something Happened.” The procedural aspect of the show took a backseat for a deeper dive into the psyche of Hargitay’s Olivia Benson.
The season 19 episode saw Olivia speaking with another character who claims she’s gone through her own traumatic episode in the past. In order to get this character to trust her, Olivia had to open up about her history. Which was challenging for both the character and the actor.
“I think in some way it dredged up all this old pain, and in some ways it was utterly healing and cathartic to even address it, to even bring it from the unconscious to the conscious, right? She spent so much of her time fleeing, sort of pushing that stuff down, rising above, focusing outward, focusing on victims, focusing on her child,” Hargitay once told E! News about the episode. “She spent so much time proving to everybody that she’s OK and she can handle the things that happened to her, but in this way, one of the things at the end is she’s so broken and so victorious. Because despite these pains, despite what she’s been through, she’s still victorious.”
But the episode was one of those performances that the Golden Globe winner needed some time to recover from.
“Actually I was wrecked for about three more days. It was hard for me to switch gears into the next episode,” Hargitay added. “I wasn’t quite present—definitely not the first day, you know what I mean? My body, my mind and my soul didn’t have time to recuperate from it.”
Why Mariska Hargitay felt it was important to explore her character’s trauma
Even after rough episodes like “Something Happened” and “Surrender Benson”, Hargitay was still willing to explore the darker aspects of her character.
“I’ve trained myself now. My job is to do the deep dive, tell these stories and do the next one. It’s the nature of the beast of certainly this kind of television, this kind of storytelling. This one was a deeper dive,” she said.
Hargitay also believed it was important to continue addressing Olivia’s mental and emotional health. So much so that she hoped the series would dedicate even more time to it going forward. With all of the trauma Olivia experienced on the show, Hargitay wanted Law & Order to show how she dealt with her past.
“I think that because Olivia and so many of the characters on our show have been through so much trauma, I really wanted to delve into that a little more,” she told Today. “And we have this idea that, ‘The strong woman, she just deals with it,’ but the way somebody is strong is to be comfortable in their vulnerability. And so I wanted to sort of take this, kind of the word is, take this idea that people are like, ‘Oh, they’re just strong, and they just come out strong.'”
Hargitay had a different definition for that kind of strength.
“Real strength has to do with feeling the feelings, dealing with them and moving through them,” she said.
How Mariska Hargitay’s family keeps her separate from Olivia Benson
Since Hargitay has played Olivia Benson for decades, she has become very close to her character and vice-versa. To the point where the role has helped completed her in a very personal way.
“This character has taught me so much. I’ve become a more whole person, a more self-aware person. I want to inspire people to have the strength to look in the mirror, go deep, and know that they can tolerate the pain and get to the other side so they can achieve what they want, especially the peace that they crave,” she told The Cut.
At the same time, Hargitay has to strip off her character at some point. She confided that the family she’s formed with husband Peter Hermann has helped Hargitay detach herself from Olivia when need be.
“How do I keep them separate? I’m madly in love with my husband,” she said. “He’s my home. I come home and we laugh. My children are my angels. All I ever wanted was to be a mom and to have this family, because mine was broken apart at a very early age, so these things are so sacred to me.”
