{"id":459458,"date":"2026-04-29T10:15:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/459458\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T10:15:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:15:33","slug":"mariska-hargitay-says-chris-meloni-svu-kiss-filmed-more-in-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/459458\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariska Hargitay Says Chris Meloni SVU Kiss Filmed, More in Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMariska Hargitay<\/a><\/strong>, one of TV\u2019s most beloved stars (she\u2019s played Olivia Benson on NBC\u2019s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for 27 seasons, longer than anyone else has played a single character on an American primetime live-action show) and one of film\u2019s most exciting new directors (her debut documentary My Mom Jayne<\/a> won Critics Choice and Producers Guild awards<\/a>), is the guest on the latest episode of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Awards Chatter<\/a> podcast<\/a>, which was recorded in front of an audience at the just-wrapped Napa Valley StreamFest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs you can hear via the audio player above or any major podcast app, and as you can read below in excerpts lightly edited for clarity and brevity, the 62-year-old Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner reflected on the 1967 car accident that claimed the life of her mother, movie star Jayne Mansfield<\/strong>, and injured her; how, when she was 34, the age at which Mansfield died, she too almost lost her life in a road accident, and how surviving that changed her outlook on life; and why, starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to make a film about her mom\u00a0\u2014 and also ended up divulging long-held secrets about her father.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also revealed juicy information about SVU, including that she has been asked to direct the show\u2019s upcoming 600th episode, and that, back during the making of the show\u2019s 24th season, she and costar Chris Meloni<\/strong> \u2014 whose characters audiences have long wanted to hook-up \u2014 did indeed film a scene in which their characters kissed, only to have Dick Wolf<\/strong> veto it in favor of the near-kiss that made it to air.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the accident that claimed the life of her mother, Jayne Mansfield\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI certainly don\u2019t remember the accident. And as I say in the film, I don\u2019t know that I remember my mother \u2014\u00a0the two memories that I have, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re real memories or they\u2019re things that I wished happened or possibly a photograph that I saw. So that\u2019s hard. But as we know, the kind of trauma that I endured certainly stays in the body and gets stuck until we work it out and we deal with it. I had a lot of PTSD as a child and a lot of anxiety from that, and there would be things that would trigger it. I didn\u2019t really have anything to compare it to because I was a kid, but it lived in me \u2026 And so, through the therapy I\u2019ve done, and through making [My Mom Jayne], it\u2019s been extraordinary to experience so much healing in the process of storytelling but also to have so much internal space back. And that\u2019s the best way I can describe it is that when that kind of stuff leaves your body, your nervous system settles and you become a different person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn people telling her, early in her career, that she needed to change things about herself\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo many people told me to change things about myself. My first and favorite one was I walked into an audition at a network, and I met with the head of casting, the head of talent, and he said, \u2018Oh, I was expecting a blonde.\u2019 And I went, \u2018Well, sorry!\u2019 And then he proceeded to ask me what my real name was, which is funny. I said, \u2018Do you think that I made this up? If I was going to make up a name, I don\u2019t know that it would be Mariska Hargitay,\u2019 which by the way, no one can say. It should have been \u2018Mariska Hardtosay.\u2019 And then it was just a lot of, \u2018You should get a nose job. You should do this. Have you ever thought about that? You\u2019re too this, you\u2019re too that.\u2019 You just hear you\u2019re too everything. \u2018You\u2019re too short. You\u2019re too tall. You\u2019re too ethnic. You\u2019re too plain. You\u2019re too pretty. You\u2019re not pretty.\u2019 You just hear it all. At the end of the day, you\u2019re like, \u2018Whatever.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn almost losing her life at 34, the same age at which one of her grandmothers and her mother died\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was on a motorcycle, which I never ride on. I was riding on the back. I had been invited to Cirque du Soleil in Vegas, and my godson was coming. [The others in her group who were making the trip from L.A.] were a bunch of cool motorcycle people. I said, \u2018I\u2019ll only go if I can drive the child.\u2019 So I drove the child in my car, and then two hours in they said, \u2018Mariska, come on. Don\u2019t be tight. Just get on the motorcycle.\u2019 And, of course, I put on a good jacket and I said, \u201cOkay, but just for a mile.\u201d I got on the motorcycle, and we stopped at a stop sign, and the car behind me was [distracted and then realized they were about to hit us] and they tried to veer off, but there was a telephone pole, so they veered off, and then they went back and hit our motorcycle. We were stopped, so the driver went flying and I went flying. The driver broke his femur in three places and his tibia and his fibula and was in a cast. I thought I was dying as I was going through the air. That was my thought, like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m 34. My mother was 34. She was in a car. I just got hit by a car. Wow, I didn\u2019t know it was going to go like this.\u2019 It was very slow-mo. And then I landed \u2014\u00a0and I was fine\u2026 my ankle blew up like a grapefruit, but it was not even fractured\u2026 When your mother dies at 34 and your grandmother dies at 34, you think you\u2019re going to die at 34. And so that was the moment when I went, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m not my mother, and I don\u2019t have that karmic curse, or whatever it was.\u2019 I very much went, \u2018Oh, I have a whole different trajectory that I\u2019m doing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMariska Hargitay on NBC\u2019s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Parmelee\/NBC<\/p>\n

\n\tOn playing Olivia Benson on <\/strong>SVU for 27 years and counting\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been beautiful because there\u2019s been kind of a parallel growth with my character, Olivia Benson, and Mariska, and we had each other to go through this together \u2014\u00a0becoming a leader, finding the equilibrium in that, becoming a mother on the show and having to manage my people, my squad, when we used to be even, and then all of a sudden you\u2019re the boss \u2026 And I think I am a different actor after My Mom Jayne. That\u2019s just a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn directing SVU\u2019s upcoming 600th episode\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey just asked me to direct the 600th! Which is episode six next year. It\u2019s crazy. Even I can\u2019t download it. Even I go, \u2018Wait, what?!\u2019 No, it\u2019s nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn people who do cable or streaming shows\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI go, how many episodes do you do? They go, \u2018eight\u2019 and \u201810.\u2019 And I go like this, \u2018Sweetheart, don\u2019t talk to me! You don\u2019t know what endurance is. Run a marathon, then call me.\u2019 No, but it\u2019s child\u2019s play \u2014 I said it, and I\u2019ll say it again, it\u2019s child\u2019s play. It\u2019s been 22 episodes for 27 years [on SVU]. I think this year we did 21 \u2014\u00a0I got one off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn she and Chris Meloni disagreeing with Dick Wolf about the season 24 scene in which Benson and Stabler nearly kiss but don\u2019t \u2014\u00a0and revealing that they shot a different version\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think we felt that this moment was earned, that this thing could happen for a second\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and so that\u2019s how we shot it. [audience goes crazy] Don\u2019t you wish you were there for that?! Yeah. We shot it a couple different ways. And then they [Wolf and others] had the choice in editing, and they [opted to use the near-kiss version rather than the kiss] \u2026 We [she and Meloni] disagreed. We disagreed because we thought that it was earned and the way it was dealt with was really complex and very beautiful and very human and showed the complexity of their relationship and all the different ways that they\u2019re connected \u2026 [But] no matter what I want, Dick Wolf can totally just say, \u2018Uh, no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn whether or not Meloni, whose <\/strong>L&O spinoff was just canceled, could come back to SVU\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cChris has his own show now [Hulu\u2019s upcoming The Land]. At some point? I mean, anything\u2019s possible. Yes. The answer to that is he and I are not \u2026 it\u2019s not done. It\u2019s not dun-dun [the L&O sound] \u2014\u00a0see what I did there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMariska Hargitay in My Mom Jayne.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of HBO<\/p>\n

\n\tOn why she decided to make <\/strong>My Mom Jayne\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI set out a movie to get to know my mother and to find out why the choices that were made [by her in her career] were made \u2026 So much of what I thought, I was wrong about, and there was so much healing that came out of it, because I actually was curious and got to understand the other side of it \u2026 One of the things I talk about in the film is, it was very difficult for me as a child to hear my mother\u2019s voice \u2014\u00a0this high-pitched sex symbol voice was so painful and embarrassing and stressful because, as a child, you just want your mom, you just want authenticity and you just want to feel safe \u2026 [But through the documentary] I got to see the private voice. I saw this woman in her public voice in her career that she architected by herself at 21 and then got to hear her voice with her kids and all these moments where she dropped down. I went, \u2018Ah, there you are. There you are.\u2019 \u2026 There was so much healing and love and so many aha moments and so much bonding with my siblings and so much light being shed\u2026 It was just one of the greatest, most cathartic, healing experiences of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the photo of Sophia Loren side-eyeing her mom\u2019s cleavage\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI used to be really embarrassed about it. And now I go, \u2018You go, girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn what her mom would have made of <\/strong>My Mom Jayne\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think she would be so proud of me and so grateful to be introduced to the world for the amazing, complex woman and beautiful artist that she was. I don\u2019t think my mom got to make the kind of movies and the kind of art that she wanted to make. We didn\u2019t have the opportunity to make a movie together \u2014 and yet we made one together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJayne Mansfield and Mariska Hargitay in My Mom Jayne.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlamy Stock Photo\/HBO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariska Hargitay, one of TV\u2019s most beloved stars (she\u2019s played Olivia Benson on NBC\u2019s Law & Order: Special…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[4648,162187,202172,94268,434,27446,18,117,19,17,82386,27445,202173,202174,25569,1113,162188],"class_list":{"0":"post-459458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-awards-chatter","10":"tag-awards-chatter-live-napa","11":"tag-awards-chatter-podcast","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-christopher-meloni","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-law-order-svu","19":"tag-mariska-hargitay","20":"tag-my-mom-jayne","21":"tag-napa-valley-streamfest","22":"tag-podcast","23":"tag-podcasts","24":"tag-thrs-original-podcasts"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116487476352091219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}