Christopher Meloni recalls his 'instant chemistry' with Mariska Hargitay on SVU

From: ew.com

Video included in the link above.

Happy! star Christopher Meloni stopped by Entertainment Weekly: The Show to discuss his lengthy film and television career, including his role in the classic film Runaway Bride, where he starred opposite Julia Roberts.
“I do a couple scenes with Julia and after one of the scenes Julia looks at me and goes, ‘Oh my god, aren’t you adorable,'” said Meloni of the auditioning process. “So I really owe Julia Roberts on that one.”

The actor then went on to talk about his role as New York City detective Elliot Stabler opposite Mariska Hargitay in Law & Order: SVU. “Mariska and I had instant chemistry, just add water,” said the actor. “Yeah, that was a great run.”

In his latest endeavor, Happy!, Meloni plays Nick Sax, a former policeman turned hitman who has a lot of issues… and an imaginary unicorn friend. The actor recalls what it was like reading the script of the show for the very first time and admits to being confused: “I had no idea what the f–k I had just read.”

“I called Bryan Taylor, one of the showrunners, I said, ‘What is this? Help me understand this role,'” said Meloni. “He was like, ‘I don’t know, I can’t tell you. Let’s just figure it out.'”

Benson's Worst Nightmare

From: eonline.com

Olivia Benson's worst nightmare just happened. At the end of "Intent," the Law & Order: SVU midseason finale about an elaborate online catfishing that resulted in a social media star (Gage Golightly) getting raped by a famous fighter (Steve Howey), Mariska Hargitay's Benson received the call every parent fears: Noah (Ryan Buggle) is missing.
The episode featured Hargitay's character lay down the law with Sheila (Brooke Shields), Noah's maternal birth grandma after Sheila told Noah about his birth mother. The two reached an understanding of sorts and Benson agreed to let Sheila take Noah shopping for a winter coat. While in the clothing store, a hooded figure watched as Noah tried on coats. When Sheila turned her back to get Noah a coat with a smaller hood, the hooded figure seemingly pounced. We're saying seemingly because SVU loves their twists. A panicked Sheila then made the call to Benson.

Talk about a cliffhanger!
Ahead of SVU's "Something Happened," the episode that departed from the series' traditional story structure of crime, investigation, litigation, Hargitay teased what's to come next for Benson.

"I remember saying to [SVU showrunner Michael Chernuchin], ‘I don't know how we did it. I don't know how we did it.' It's just like this whole other flavor," Hargitay said about the upcoming episode. "We just dove into motherhood, and what it means to be a mother and what we would do for our children. And again, we keep finding all these beautiful areas to excavate and it's deeply exciting."

Mariska On The Set of SVU

From:celebzz.com

 

 

 

All the Times Former 'SVU' Partners Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni Have Reunited IRL

From: tvinsider.com

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Even though Christopher Meloni departed NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ahead of its Season 12 finale in 2011, that doesn't mean he stopped hanging out with his partner, Mariska Hargitay—a.k.a. Lieutenant Olivia Benson.
Meloni, who played Detective Elliot Stabler, regularly meets up with Hargitay in New York City, and they love sharing their reunions on social media. And fans rightfully freak out!
Most recently, the former SVU on-screen partners met up before the holidays:

Mariska Hargitay Was "Wrecked" For Days After Law & Order: SVU's Emotional Episode

From: www.eonline.com

"I was wrecked," Mariska Hargitay said about life after filming Law & Order: SVU's "Something Happened," a season 19 episode that broke from the show's long-running story structure and largely featured an interview between her character, Lt. Olivia Benson, and Melora Walters' Laurel Linwood, a rape victim…or was she?
The interview between the two characters unraveled many layers of both of them. Laurel said her dad abused her for years, but it was really her sister, Leah (Joanna Going), who suffered the years of abuse. To get to the truth, Benson had to acknowledge some repressed emotions about her own father and his role, or lack thereof, in her life. Benson was a product of rape, she never knew her father.

 

 

"We were wrecked…Actually I was wrecked for about three more days. It was hard for me to switch gears into the next episode," Hargitay admitted to E! News. "I wasn't quite present—definitely not the first day, you know what I mean? My body, my mind and my soul didn't have time to recuperate from it."
In the episode, Benson acknowledges her own feelings of hatred to her father, feelings that have been driving her subconsciously.

"I think in some way it dredged up all this old pain, and in some ways it was utterly healing and cathartic to even address it, to even bring it from the unconscious to the conscious, right? She spent so much of her time fleeing, sort of pushing that stuff down, rising above, focusing outward, focusing on victims, focusing on her child," Hargitay said. "She spent so much time proving to everybody that she's OK and she can handle the things that happened to her, but in this way, one of the things at the end is she's so broken and so victorious. Because despite these pains, despite what she's been through, she's still victorious…she's even succeeded in this painful job, she's still in the middle of fighting for her child, she's still doing it…She keeps showing herself how strong she…she's brave enough to go inward."

SVU's Mariska Hargitay on Reopening Benson's Old Wounds & Emerging a True Heroine

But at the end of the day, she said, "It was rough."
"I've trained myself now. My job is to do the deep dive, tell these stories and do the next one. It's the nature of the beast of certainly this kind of television, this kind of storytelling," she said, and then conceded: "This one was a deeper dive."
In early ratings, NBC said the episode notched a 1.5 in the 18-49 demographic, a season high for the long-running series, and 7.1 million viewers overall.

The episode was largely well-received by fans, despite issues many had with the Twitter term for the airing, #BensonsSecret.

No, the producers did not forget the circumstances about Benson's parentage, but the hashtag was seemingly referring to the depths in which Benson went to and the feelings she uncovered about her father, upbringing, and abuse inflicted by William Lewis (Pablo Schreiber). It wasn't so much a secret, but previously unacknowledged truths.

Law & Order: SVU airs Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on NBC.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

 

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Oh "Happy" Day!

From: eonline.com

It's the holiday present we didn't know we needed, until now!
On Thursday night, the Christmas season got brighter for Law & Order: SVU fans when two unforgettable co-stars reunited.
Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to see Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay together again?
"‘Tis the season..." Mariska shared on Instagram with a selfie. "Ran into this #HAPPY man." But wait, there's more!
Christopher posted a separate—and clearer—photo of the reunion with the message, "#Friends #Seehappy #jingleHells."

While we're not quite sure what brought these two together, it appears Chris was out celebrating his new show Happy! on SYFY.
The series follows a degenerate ex-cop whose life is forever changed by a relentlessly positive, imaginary friend and premieres December 6.
As fans recall, Christopher and Mariska starred as Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, respectively, for 12 seasons of SVU.

And while the show never took this pair's relationship into something more romantic, the duo had chemistry that fans will never forget.
"She was always ready for anything new…There was always an unspoken shorthand to what we were doing. That makes it just so much easier, and off camera as well," Christopher told James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio. "There's a lot to be said for that when you're working with someone for 16 hours a day, you better get along when the cameras aren't rolling as well as when it is. That was priceless, I think for both of us."