Mariska Hargitay has not emerged unscathed after a quarter-century of fighting crime in fiction (and, more recently, in real life).
Since 1999, the Emmy Award-winning actress has played Manhattan detective Olivia Benson on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Unlike other shows in the franchise, “SVU” focuses on sex crimes, where the victim survives and helps authorities with the investigation.
During her 25 years on the show, Hargitay has struggled to emotionally distance herself from its storylines, which, while fictional, are “ripped from the headlines,” she told “Only Murders in the Building” star Selena Gomez during a conversation published Monday on Interview magazine.
“When I first started watching the show, I didn’t know how deeply it would affect me,” Hargitay told Gomez. “I think I was definitely a victim of secondary trauma from being inundated with these stories and knowing that they were true.”
She added that whenever she and her husband travel, her first question is, “What's the crime rate here?”
“SVU” episodes depict “particularly heinous” crimes, as the opening sequence calls them, from child trafficking to serial reproductive abuse. The subject matter is serious enough that Hargitay maintains a private enclave on the set, where she regularly goes to regroup off-camera.
“I’ve holed myself up here to get some inspiration,” she told Parade magazine in 2019, “because I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t hard to be inundated with material. It’s still a tough world for me.”
Before the show, Hargitay told Gomez she didn't know much about sexual assault or domestic abuse.
Then, during “SVU’s” first year, she accompanied the show’s creator, Dick Wolf, to an awards ceremony hosted by Mount Sinai’s Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program. That night, she said, she heard the statistics: One in three women and One in six men They are survivors of sexual violence, which prompted her to found her Joyful Heart Foundation.
Founded in 2004, the nonprofit organization seeks to “transform society's response to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, support the healing of survivors, and end this violence forever,” according to its website.
Through its End the Backlog program, Joyful Heart has worked with the Detroit Police Department over the past decade to analyze thousands of backlogged rape kits, leading to the discovery of “22 serial rapists.” “Deadline: Weekly True Crimes” Last month, podcast host Andrea Canning reported on the issue. Her effort was also detailed in the 2017 HBO documentary “I Am Evidence,” which Hargitay produced and in which she appears.
“It’s having a ripple effect across the country,” Canning said. “It’s creating changes everywhere, in police departments and in prosecutors’ offices.”
“These stories are not new. They’ve been happening since the beginning of time, but they’re just now getting the attention they deserve, and it took a while,” Hargitay told USA Today in 2019. “That’s why I’m so grateful for the #MeToo movement and Time’s Up because now our voices are coming together, and they’re stronger together and stronger together, and now the culture is changing because everyone is aware of it.”
Finally, Hargitay told Gomez that while “SVU” empowered her to raise awareness about sexual assault, Joyful Heart allowed her to “do something” about it.
“This has exceeded my wildest dreams in terms of my career, but also in terms of personal fulfillment – being able to unite my acting with my philanthropy or with a personal mission to participate in people’s healing,” she said. “I think about that often.”
In the same way, she said, she has had the privilege of evolving “as both Mariska and Olivia Benson.”
In the early days of “SVU,” she continued, “I wasn’t the boss and I had no power.”
“[Now]I know my worth, I know my power, I know what I have to offer, and I'm totally comfortable with my vulnerability, with all the ways that I still feel like a little girl. That's a really peaceful place to be.”
“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” Season 26 premieres Thursday, October 3 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
