Peter Hermann Once Shared How He Fell For Mariska Hargitay
Law & Order SVU star Mariska Hargitay met the love of her life Peter Hermann on the set of her show. Hargitay has often felt she experienced love at first sight when she first saw Hermann. But Hermann felt slightly different about their first encounter.
How Peter Hermann and Mariska Hargitay reacted to each other
Hargitay had a feeling about Hermann from the moment she saw him. The two met in season 3 of SVU with Hermann appearing as a guest star. The actor left an immediate impression on his future wife without even trying to. In The Drew Barrymore Show, Hargitay explained what her first reaction to Hermann was.
“’So, who is that Clark Gable Superman guy that I need to marry today?;” she remembered thinking.
But although Hargitay remembered feeling weak in the knees during their first encounter, Hermann had a more cautious approach.
“We actually talk about this. We complement each other really beautifully, because she is deeply intuitive. She is—and ‘impulsive’ can have a negative connotation in the sense that it lacks care, and that’s not it at all—she is a deeply intuitive, wonderfully impulsive person who leaps towards life,” Hargitay once told Elle. “Mariska will say, and I will say, that I mull things, just by nature. I turn things over and over and look at all sides in my mind and Mariska will say, very generously, ‘You’re very thoughtful.’”
But like Hargitay, Hermann quickly realized that he wanted to be with Hargitay for the long term.
“Something in me knew right away that this was a person I didn’t want to let go of,” he said.
Peter Hermann admitted to having no game with Mariska Hargitay
Hermann and Hargitay would eventually go on a successful date despite the rocky start they had with each other. Hargitay tried to break the ice between herself and Hermann with a joke she felt didn’t land. Although Hermann appreciated her humor more in hindsight.
“She…let me put it this way: She came at me hard with her fantastic, incomparable humor and I didn’t yet know it for the gift that it was,” he said.
But Hermann felt like he wasn’t at his smoothest when courting Hargitay, either. He felt he didn’t have his game together yet when seriously approaching his partner.
“I did know enough to go by her trailer, just to talk,” Hermann said. “I just invented some reason to talk. And we kept talking. And walked, we walked all over New York together. I still have the piece of paper that, eighteen years ago, the PA wrote her phone number on for the first time.”
Their interaction would eventually lead towards a date that solidified their 19-year-marriage. One of the activities they did when they first dated was go to church. It was there that Hargitay had an emotional breakdown when realizing how much she cared about Hermann.
“I just started sobbing. Peter thought I was crying because I was so moved by the service,” Hargitay once recalled to People. “No, it was because I was just overwhelmed, realizing he was the one.”
Peter Hermann explained how he and Mariska Hargitay keep their marriage intact
Hermann understood early on that marriage with Hargitay wouldn’t work just based off of chemistry alone.
“He’s not an unproblematic philosopher to quote, but Nietzsche said marriage is a conversation, and I knew right away that we had a lifetime of conversation in us. We’ve known each other for eighteen years, and we’re still talking and still figuring out and still discovering and relearning what marriage is,” Hermann said.
And he and Hargitay have had plenty of conversations being together for almost two decades. As is the case with many married couples, some of these conversations have led to arguments. But Hermann and Hargitay’s marriage benefits from not letting these arguments get in the way of their relationship.
“One thing that is a fundamental tool is curiosity,” Hermann said. “In moments of disagreement, and moments where you’re slogging through another hard day of marriage—even if you can stay curious about yourself, the best is to stay curious about the other person, but even if you can’t manage that, if you can stay curious about why this particular thing makes you so mad, that creates a little bit of room. Some people have really fancy toolboxes. They have a super fancy and expensive level and plumb line, but I’m telling you, the hammer and nails and screwdriver are kindness and love and listening. If you have the basics in place, that goes a long way.”
