What To Know
- Mariska Hargitay considered leaving Law & Order: SVU around Season 25.
- She also shared in a recent interview that she’s not ready to quit yet.
Some shows feel like they can only last as long as their lead remains on. Law & Order: SVU is certainly among them. And so it makes sense that Dick Wolf told Variety, “I hope we never have to answer that question,” about the long-running drama, in which Mariska Hargitay has been starring since the beginning in 1999, could survive without her.
The good news is that while at one point, Hargitay did think about leaving, she’s no longer considering it, especially after she made her Broadway debut in Every Brilliant Thing between Seasons 27 and 28. But, as she told Variety, she spoke with Julianna Margulies — whom she’d starred with on ER in its fourth season and who exited the medical drama in its sixth — around Season 25 and said, “I’ve got to leave the show too. I don’t want people to think I’m a one-trick pony.” Hargitay shared that Margulies told her, “Sweetheart, that ship’s sailed.”
But the Law & Order: SVU star also admitted, “I wasn’t ready to leave, because I loved it. And then I got to do all this other stuff, and that’s why I don’t think about leaving right now.” She’d previously considered it when she wanted to do other things, which she’s gotten to do in recent years while continuing her work on SVU; there was the aforementioned Broadway play along with the documentary My Mom Jayne about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, and she’ll be hosting the Emmys in September. That should be where we see her leaning into comedy, like she hasn’t been able to on SVU.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
“The comedy thing was painful to me because I felt like I was only exercising one part of myself,” Hargitay explained to Variety. “People would say, ‘You need to get off that show and do comedy. You need to get off that show and have a talk show.’”
She continued, “Do I want to quit now? No. Why? I made a movie while shooting; I did a play for six weeks on hiatus. I’m hosting the Emmys. Next summer, if I don’t make another movie, I’ll probably do another play.”
It is starting to feel like SVU will (and should) hit at least 30 seasons. Series star Kelli Giddish seemed confident that will happen when TV Insider spoke with her at the ATX TV Festival in May.
“Absolutely. It’s a huge milestone, and Dick Wolf wants it, and I think Mariska wants it, and when those two people want something, it gets done,” she said.
Law & Order: SVU, Season 28 Premiere, Thursday, October 8, 9/8c, NBC