Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Unofficial Companion (23 page)

Read Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Unofficial Companion Online

Authors: Susan Green,Randee Dawn

“Just walking down the street, I’d have women grab me, going, ‘Your show changed my life. I wish you were the detective on my case. I wish someone would have believed me,’” says Hargitay. “Because from a police department point of view, your job is to get the information—and one tactic is to have the victim repeat the story several times. But that is a way of ultimately re-injuring (a sexual trauma victim) and hurting them more.”
She started the Joyful Heart Foundation to help raise awareness of the kind of issues dealt with on the show, and to provide resources for survivors of sexual assaults, child abuse, and domestic violence. Hargitay’s personal website (
mariska.com
) has the usual information on the actress, but is permeated by self-help and women’s empowerment discussions and information. In some ways, scrolling through Hargitay’s online presence is like taking a trip into an alternate universe powered by Olivia Benson.
“It made me sad that people were emailing a character on a TV show because they didn’t know where to go,” she says. “Dick Wolf is trying to entertain, that’s what he’s doing, but the show educates. That’s why people watch the show, because it’s so smart and it’s a thinking person’s show. I felt like God put me on this show for a reason.”
Some of Hargitay’s God-given qualities have long impressed Robert Nathan, a former
SVU
co-executive producer who also worked with the actress on two non-L&O series, and who says, “Generosity, emotional and artistic and every other kind, is in her DNA. It’s just who she is.”
In 2005, Hargitay became pregnant and
SVU
opted to keep Olivia without child, which led the production team to hide her growing belly while she made some very athletic moves—and even while just walking across the squad room. “I was very lucky in that my face maintained (its size), which we all couldn’t believe because I got ginormous,” Hargitay says with a laugh. “But we got into a rhythm of it—everyone knew to hold their files up high (to block her stomach) and it became a fun thing, sitting me at desks, there were all these tricks we did.”
August was born in July 2006, and today he’s like an off-camera cast member, roaming the set between takes with his mama and nanny in tow. “The fact that I was allowed to bring my child to work. . . was like I hit the jackpot,” says his devoted mother
And in many ways, she has: In September 2008,
Forbes.com
named her the sixth top-earning primetime TV actress, pulling in $6.5 million between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008, including funds from her clothing line. But she didn’t fall into that money pile; it’s thanks to a lot of hard work and an Olivia-esque obsession. Luck may play a part, but Mariska Hargitay tends to make her own luck. “Everything has been such a gift,” she says. “Neal came, I met Peter, I was in love the first year, then marital bliss the second year, then pregnant for the third year, then August—so it’s been a really amazing five years. The first five were rough, I’m not going to lie, but the second five . . . they’ve been
beyond
.”
Christopher Meloni (Det. Elliot Stabler, 1999−Present)
Originally From:
Washington, D.C.
Other Wolf Films Associations: Law & Order: Trial By Jury
(Det. Elliot Stabler, 2005);
Law & Order
(Det. Elliot Stabler, “Fools for Love” and “Entitled: Part 2,” 2000)
Selected Other Credits:
(Film)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
(Freakshow, 2004),
Runaway Bride
(Coach Bob Kelly, 1999),
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(Sven, 1998); (TV)
Oz
(Chris Keller, 1998-2003),
NYPD Blue
(Jimmy Liery, 1996-97),
The Fanelli Boys
(Frankie Fanelli, 1990-91)
Upcoming Projects:
(Film)
The Stepfather
(2009),
Dirty Movie
(producer/director, 2008)
Just the Facts
About Meloni:
He’s held his share of off-camera sustenance jobs, but Christopher Meloni has always intended to eventually be center stage. “People say, ‘How did you become an actor?’ And I say, ‘I didn’t want to, I had to,’” he explains. After growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Meloni studied acting first at college, then in New York with the acclaimed coach Sanford Meisner. But getting that big break required a prison term—as sociopath Chris Keller on HBO’s
Oz
, where he bared his soul and certain parts of his anatomy during much of the series six-season run.
Christopher Meloni (Det. Elliot Stabler)
It was during that show’s lifespan that he picked up a second major gig on
SVU
, and for a time he had to juggle the two jobs simultaneously. That meant on some days Meloni would work twenty-two hours straight, go home for four hours of sleep, then hit another set for fifteen to sixteen hours. But he kept his perspective: “When I got
Oz
, I’d ride my bike to the set at Chelsea Market (where the show filmed) on a spring morning and I had to repeat to myself, ‘I am the luckiest actor, working on a quality edgy show in Manhattan.’ Then I got
SVU
and now I’ve won the lottery.”
Oz
may be long gone, but
SVU
remains, as does Meloni—who in person is, thankfully, far more affable and relaxed than his alter ego, Stabler.
About Stabler:
The irony of being called “Stabler” is that—well, Elliot Stabler is possibly one of the least stable characters in the squadroom. Meloni has a different spin: “He was intentionally named ‘Stabler’ as a stabilizing influence on his more neophyte partner Benson, but he’s got a fragility, a weakness—he’s growing.” Much of that growth has come over the past ten seasons; viewers likely know more about Stabler than any other character in the history of the Law & Order franchise.
Here’s a summary of the Elliot Stabler résumé, as of season nine: He grew up Catholic with two sisters and three brothers—and a controlling policeman father who beat him. He knocked up his girlfriend Kathy while they were still teens, married her (seventeen years ago, as revealed during season three) and joined the Marines in time to serve in Operation Desert Storm while his firstborn was a toddler. When Stabler returned to civilian life, he earned a B.A. at night school and worked in a bar; he became a cop (sixteen years ago, as noted in season nine, but eighteen years ago in season eight, so the viewer can take his or her pick) and now he and Kathy have five children: Maureen, Kathleen, twins Elizabeth and Dickie (who were eight years old in season three), and new baby Eli (as of season nine). The family lives in Queens on Stabler’s modest salary of $68,940 (as of season four).
His badge number is 6313. He’s had at least three partners: One killed himself after becoming frustrated about his inability to solve a case (though whether they were partners at the time of death is unclear); another, named “Alphonse,” retired to Florida; and Det. Olivia Benson appears to have succeeded Alphonse (in season seven, he and Benson have been partners for seven years). Stabler and his wife split in season six and in season seven she began divorce proceedings, though they ultimately reconciled. He’s an often-absent father and a good cop with anger-management issues; his 97 percent case-closure rate is evidence that he’s doing something right.
Explains Meloni: “He’s a meat-and-potatoes guy who understands very clearly the ideas of loyalty and justice, and that’s where his troubles in life stem from—because he knows what’s right and wrong and the world doesn’t match up to these very clear concepts he has. He’s such a ‘man’ that he’s also like a child. Maturity is about understanding that life is a big shade of gray with a lot of compromises along the way, and it’s that uncompromising position that’s difficult and weighs on him.”
The Rest of the Story
There’s something to be said about working for one boss while trying to score a second job from that boss’s friend. Christopher Meloni auditioned for
SVU
while still doing
Oz
. He emerged from the casting session, thinking, “I did a great reading, and that’s that.” But three weeks passed and he had heard nothing. So while on the set of
Oz
, he approached executive producer/creator Tom Fontana, one of Wolf’s longtime friends. “I said, ‘You know this guy, tell this son of a bitch, “Is it yes or no?” Because this is killing me,’” recalls Meloni. “So God bless Tom Fontana; he makes a call and ten minutes later comes back and says, ‘Yeah, he’ll be calling you.’”
When the second audition came around, Meloni read for Wolf and then-showrunner Robert Palm, but again weeks passed without word. He and his wife had just landed in Hawaii for a trip when the call came to screen test in New York. He learned he had the part before returning to his hotel room. Hawaii, here we come! Except once Meloni was back on the islands, “I immediately got a gall bladder attack, had my gall bladder removed, and went back home.”
Some things were just not meant to be, like that trip, but in the case of Elliot Stabler, some things truly were. It hardly seems that anyone else could have filled the brogans of that character better than Meloni, who can flip in a heartbeat from being comforting and sensitive to a perp’s greatest nightmare, and who serves as the ideal yin to the yang of Mariska Hargitay’s Det. Olivia Benson.
He’s also become heavily invested in making Stabler real; early on, recalls Meloni, he tended to be “note-crazy” with the writers, commenting left and right on every word Stabler was meant to utter in a script. He’s dialed back since then, and picks his battles. “Part of my job is to be a better interpreter,” Meloni explains. “Now these aren’t ego notes but notes of ‘help me understand.’”
Playing Stabler requires other choices, and other battles that need to be selectively chosen. “Every victim can’t bring tears to your eyes,” Meloni says. “You’re on a procedural type show, and you have to pick your shots. You’re playing a cop, so you have to pick that place where you let your heart out and reveal it.”
Without question, he has had plenty of opportunity to do that over the years, and has an Emmy nomination for the role to prove it. But Meloni claims that awards themselves don’t hold a great deal of importance to him, even though his co-star Hargitay has multiple nominations and even a win for her role. “I do appreciate them,” he says with care, “and I do understand it from a business side that it means a lot. But I did get a lot of shit for my attitude when I got nominated.”
Namely, he was out water-skiing the morning nominations were announced in 2006. Called to the phone to talk with showrunner Neal Baer, Meloni pulled over and got a hearty congratulations. “I was like, ‘Cool! I’m going back to ski.’ And I tell that story because we all know the hype and hoops we’re going to have to jump through, and the big party that’s going to be great, and when I got it, I was like, ‘All right.’ I told my dad, and I told him I was having a hard time placing it, because I’d never expected it. It wasn’t part of my universe. And he listened to me and he said, ‘These are the sort of things you accept with grace.’ It’s such a simple thing. Someone’s giving you a gift, accept it, thank you. Thank you for the party. I was having a hard time moving my own framework of what was important out of the way—and I finally got it.”
Less easily resolved, however, is just how long he’ll continue to stay with the show. The last time contract negotiations came up, Meloni says, “they were unhappy on my part. Hostile.” But, he qualifies, “That’s because of a changing dynamic in the business.” In the end, it worked out well: In 2007,
TV Guide
reported that both Meloni and Hargitay now make $350,000 per episode, making them among the highest-paid actors on broadcast primetime television.
And after a decade, Meloni says he truly enjoys the job, despite the long, intense days. “I truly love the people I work with,” he says. “I enjoy the collaborative effort both on the set and with the writers; I love being in New York as a well-paid, working actor, and I enjoy being on a show that on the street is well-respected. No one is phoning it in, and I just can’t believe it after ten years. It’s always nice to be in a place of passion.”
Dann Florek (Capt. Donald “Don” Cragen, 1999−Present)
Originally From:
Michigan
Other Wolf Films Associations: Exiled: A Law & Order Movie
(Capt. Donald Cragen, 1998);
Law & Order
(Capt. Donald Cragen, 1990−93)

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