Olivia Benson's is the perfect feminist story, defines
Mariska Hargitay
, the actress who has been donning the police uniform to play her for 25 years.
In January, NBC began broadcasting season 25 of
Law and Order SVU
, showing stories often based on real events, starring the division of the New York police that pursues sexual crimes.
On the
Today
program , on the same channel, they made Mariska watch a fragment of the first episode, from 1999, where she shows her badge to a woman and introduces herself, “Detective Olivia Benson, New York Police Department.”
“What a small voice I had there, it grew in volume throughout this cycle and that speaks of the evolution of the character,” the actress is surprised.
From detective to captain sergeant, Olivia is the longest-running dramatic character in US TV history.
Mariska, who turned 60 this week, says she feels better than ever, much more present, after having also found her voice.
“Wonder Woman” was the title of People
magazine
in a note they gave her, where they gave her the space to write an essay publicly telling, for the first time, that a friend raped her in her youth.
Mariska now declares herself a survivor, like the victims she helps in her series.
Mariska with Juan José Campanella, who already directed her in several episodes of the series.
Photo EFE
“I knew from the day they showed me the first script that this was a very special program.
Pursuing these types of crimes weekly on TV, being able to give a voice and hope to the victims was not common.”
She remembers that the show made her feel like a feminist hero.
A late success
Daughter of actors, her mother is the playmate Jayne Mansfield, success came to her only after she was 40 years old.
“My first Emmy, my great love, my first child…” she lists.
She was in season 3 when she crossed paths with an actor, Peter Hermann, who was coming to play a guest defense attorney.
In the Dick Wolf series they pursue criminals and then take them to court to pay for their crimes.
The perfect catharsis.
“I saw him and knew he was the man I was going to marry,” she confessed to Drew Barrymore.
In 2006, when she was 42, her son August was born and she won an Emmy as a dramatic actress for composing Olivia, one of her 8 nominations.
In 2011 she would adopt her other two children, Amaya and Andrew.
Two years later she posed with the entire family receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The series started in 1999, and is the longest-running police program.
“A man raped me in my 30s, it was not sexual, it was domination and control.
He was a friend and suddenly he wasn't.
I froze and fell out of my body, a trauma response when there is no escape possible.
“I did what I had to do to survive.”
Fans of the series have seen her on countless occasions compassionately tell victims, “I'm so sorry,” “It's not your fault,” and “The experience is horrible, but it doesn't define you.”
A friend helped her put a name to what had happened to her.
Many years ago, before she recognized herself as a victim, Mariska Hargitay created a foundation, Joyful Heart, to help survivors of sexual abuse and violence.
Her compassion creates a lot of empathy with the audience, she is an integral part of the success of the program.
Mariska Hargitay confessed that a friend raped her.
The Argentine
Juan José Campanella
, who has directed her many times in that series, says that although on screen Olivia is very serious, in real life Mariska is outgoing and very funny.
She looked very funny at the last Emmy Awards, reunited with actor Christopher Meloni (detective Elliot Stabler), with whom she formed a duo during the first decade of the series.
“I feel better than ever,” she says, who admits to texting all the time with her friend Jamie Lee Curtis, who at 65 teaches her how to relax and enjoy this new stage of her life.
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