There’s no secret to Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni’s “good chemistry” — just an instant connection that traces back to their very first audition together.
Before stepping into their iconic Law & Order: Special Victims Unit roles as Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler, Hargitay, 60, and Meloni, 63, were just two actors — and total strangers — in an audition that quickly turned into a “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Hargitay explained in a new interview with Today.
Hargitay recalled how the SVU leads first crossed paths — and how she knew from “minute one” that they were meant to share the screen together.
“You and Chris get in a room together, and [Law & Order franchise creator] Dick Wolf says, ‘That’s it,’ ” Today’s Willie Geist told Hargitay of the actors’ joint audition, which prompted her to reply, “Yeah. That is what happened.”
Added Hargitay: “It was a sort of once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
The SVU stars were first paired up during one of her callbacks for the series — now one of the longest-running primetime shows in history at 25 seasons and counting — and Hargitay knew Meloni was the guy for the role immediately.
“In the room, when he walked in, I sort of sized him up, and I said, ‘That’s the guy.’ … It was so obvious to me that that was the guy, and apparently, he felt the same way,” she told Today.
For the actors — who had instant chemistry, plus a shared love of comedy, per Hargitay — that audition was fateful, to put it lightly. “So, it was — just felt meant to be,” the actress explained.
And the chemistry they discovered ahead of SVU’s 1999 premiere has stuck around in the decades that followed. “We were like, ‘I know we have good chemistry.’ Even at times when we were, like, fighting or had a difference of opinion, or things getting tense, we still had it,” Hargitay told Today. “It’s chemistry, right?”
“And, we were just always very important people in each other’s lives, and we knew it. We knew it from minute one,” she added. “And we’re still very close, very close.”
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Hargitay has never shied away from talking about her relationship with Meloni, telling PEOPLE last year that her longtime costar and friend has “changed” her life significantly.
“We met and the rest is history,” she said of the actor in January 2024. “It’s iconic. [He’s] somebody who’s changed my life so much, somebody I love.”
The actress also recalled feeling strongly about Meloni right away. “I was like, ‘If they match me with him, this is my role.’ And he said the same thing. He goes, ‘I want her.’ And then he and I got it,” she recalled, citing Meloni’s “energy, confidence, power” — plus, “the way he looked.”
“He was the guy. I just knew he was the guy from reading the script. He was New York, this dark horse, but funny, light,” she said, adding that she’s “so grateful that those magical stars collided.”
Season 26 of Law & Order: SVU will return on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 9 p.m. EST on NBC.
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