As Law & Order: SVU celebrates 25 seasons, Mariska Hargitay sits down to see if she can remember saying pivotal lines from the series. She also discusses her work with survivors of sexual abuse through her charity Joyful Heart Foundation.
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00:00 I don't remember anything.
00:01 Do you know how many lines I've had to learn?
00:03 I gotta start watching the old episodes.
00:05 I really do.
00:06 It goes into my heart, goes into my soul,
00:09 and then I go, "Bye-bye!"
00:11 [upbeat music]
00:14 Oh, geez.
00:18 I don't even have to.
00:19 Look at this, I just saw one line.
00:20 Yes, I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with pickle.
00:25 Well, to be honest with you, this was the episode.
00:28 Can't remember what season it was.
00:30 And this was the episode where I was on,
00:32 I think maybe Mushrooms,
00:33 and I thought we had jumped the shark.
00:36 What?
00:37 I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with the pickle.
00:40 Was it my favorite line?
00:41 Somebody slipped me Mushrooms,
00:45 and I had to do an interrogation scene,
00:48 and it was, you know, I had to deliver this line
00:53 as serious as I could, and I remember feeling,
00:56 "I earned my money that day.
00:58 "Let's just leave it at that."
01:00 Only a certain kind of people bring up that line to me,
01:03 and mostly my co-star, Chris Maloney,
01:06 who likes to go down memory lane with it.
01:08 [laughs]
01:12 You think I'm a bitch, don't you?
01:16 You're not the first.
01:18 You know, this was such a great line.
01:21 Who thinks she's a bitch?
01:23 I don't know, I don't care.
01:24 I don't remember anything.
01:26 Do you know how many lines I've had to deliver?
01:28 It goes in, it goes in, it goes into my heart,
01:30 goes into my soul, and then I go, "Bye-bye!"
01:33 You think I'm a bitch, don't you?
01:36 You're not the first.
01:40 That's such an empowering moment for women, right?
01:43 Because we're not allowed,
01:45 we haven't been allowed to have our anger.
01:48 We haven't been allowed to have our opinion.
01:50 We have to be nice and bring everyone together,
01:53 and don't ruffle things up,
01:55 and just make it nice, keep it nice.
01:56 I think that's one of the hardest lessons for women,
02:00 to go, "Yeah, guess what?
02:02 "Here's my opinion, and you may not like it,
02:04 "and that's okay."
02:05 I think no is one of the hardest things that women learn.
02:09 It was very nice to finally get comfortable
02:13 with people not liking you,
02:15 people not liking what you say,
02:18 people being uncomfortable with your answer,
02:21 and it literally felt like I got a piece of myself back.
02:26 On and off the screen.
02:28 Sweetheart, set a boundary, people will abide by them.
02:32 Now I'm doing my faces.
02:34 (laughs)
02:36 Where are these dinosaurs gonna,
02:39 when are these dinosaurs gonna die out?
02:41 Oh, okay, so we're talking about the old guard.
02:46 I'm not talking about Peter Gallagher or Terry.
02:50 Don't remember what year, what season.
02:52 Sad, isn't it?
02:53 When are these dinosaurs gonna die out?
02:56 Obviously, I often find myself in a male-dominated society,
03:01 and I've had to sort of beat to my own drum,
03:06 and go up against a lot of oppressive forces,
03:10 and people who did things in an old way.
03:13 When I got the role of Olivia Benson,
03:15 obviously I started going on ride-alongs with cops,
03:18 and hanging out at police precincts,
03:20 just to understand the machinations of what went on there.
03:24 But I also became a rape crisis counselor,
03:28 and I went through a 40-hour training,
03:30 and I met all these badass SVU detectives
03:35 that were females, that were so strong,
03:40 and so compassionate, and so empathetic,
03:44 and didn't take any shit from anyone.
03:47 I think every single person should go through this training.
03:51 Every single human being on this planet
03:54 should learn how to listen, and that was my takeaway.
03:57 This is a very resonant, and meaningful,
04:03 and important, and empowering line.
04:06 Once you tell your story, it can be empowering,
04:09 and the floodgates open.
04:11 I don't know what year this is from,
04:16 but I think that this is a very true statement,
04:21 and I think part of Olivia Benson's motto.
04:24 Once you tell your story, it can be empowering,
04:26 the floodgates open.
04:27 Once I started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004,
04:31 obviously I was getting a lot of hesitation, rejection,
04:34 and people didn't wanna touch it.
04:36 They didn't want to go near sexual assault,
04:39 because it was yucky, and not pretty,
04:41 and if it wasn't a disease per se,
04:43 they were not interested in it.
04:45 Certainly to get corporate funding.
04:48 The writers of the show also started working
04:50 with our foundation, and meeting all the experts
04:52 in the field.
04:54 It's when the real synergy sort of came in,
04:57 and the messaging became very aligned.
05:01 And so I think that was that year.
05:03 Storytelling is one of the most healing modalities,
05:07 and having somebody bear witness to your story
05:10 is one of the most healing things
05:11 that can happen to a person.
05:13 (pages rustling)
05:16 Well I take it that this line was said with irony.
05:22 Don't you just hate to see a grown man cry?
05:25 I have no idea.
05:28 It's so funny.
05:29 I gotta start watching the old episodes.
05:31 I really do.
05:32 I think I'm gonna have our show runner
05:34 write all these lines back in,
05:36 so I can re-say them and see how I'd say them now.
05:39 Don't you just hate to see a grown man cry?
05:41 You know, I actually watch old episodes sometimes,
05:44 and I sit there and I go,
05:45 nothing.
05:48 I can't remember.
05:49 But I think that also when I was younger doing the show too,
05:53 I was managing so much.
05:55 It was a lot to go from, you know, moving to New York,
05:58 and playing this new character,
05:59 and there was a lot of stress at the time,
06:02 and stuff that I was learning,
06:02 that I think I was stressed out a bit,
06:05 so I couldn't fully be present,
06:07 which is shame and hard.
06:10 I have so many memories in this town,
06:12 and I can't drive anywhere without going,
06:14 oh, I shot that, I shot a scene there,
06:16 or I remember that there.
06:17 So I have such a beautiful and intimate relationship
06:19 with New York City,
06:20 that I feel so blessed to have,
06:23 'cause it's such a magical city,
06:25 and we've always sort of looked at the city
06:28 as, you know, the sixth or seventh character on the show.
06:32 Ah, yes, it's detective, not miss.
06:34 Save your lawyering for somebody who gives a damn.
06:37 Yeah, again, one of these lines,
06:39 which was exciting to start to change the conversation
06:44 around how people were treated,
06:46 and equality, which was so important to me.
06:49 It's detective, not miss,
06:51 and we're not in court, counselor.
06:52 We're in my house, why don't you save your lawyering
06:54 for somebody who gives a damn?
06:56 These archaic patterns of disrespect,
07:01 and condescension, that run rampant,
07:06 were just not acceptable for me.
07:08 Sometimes, like even now, people will go to me
07:11 that I don't know, or a man, or an older man will go,
07:13 listen, sweetie, or honey, or baby, or something,
07:17 and I'll say, because it's intention that matters to me.
07:21 If they're being disrespectful,
07:22 that's one thing, and I'll shut it down.
07:23 However, if they're saying it 'cause they don't know,
07:28 I will say, you know,
07:29 I know that you meant that in such a kind way,
07:31 but women don't really like that.
07:32 Women don't really like that,
07:33 unless it's coming from a loved one,
07:36 or somebody that they have an intimate relationship,
07:39 and I've mostly been met with, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
07:43 So I like to give people the benefit of the doubt,
07:47 and innocent until proven guilty,
07:50 but once they've shown me who they are,
07:53 or they're intentionally disrespectful,
07:55 then I shut it down pretty fast.
07:57 Such an important and beautiful line,
08:01 and one of my favorite lines that I say over and over
08:03 to people on camera and off, is you survived the abuse,
08:08 and you're going to survive the recovery, and that is true.
08:12 But you survived the abuse, Gia.
08:14 You're gonna survive the recovery.
08:19 There's so much fear, you know,
08:21 about going into the pain of this kind of trauma,
08:26 and people wanna get away from it, understandably,
08:31 but we know now that the only way out is through,
08:34 and so that's one of the most important messages
08:38 we can give anyone in terms of healing.
08:40 There have been so many episodes that have made me
08:44 so incredibly emotional, or stories that were just so rough
08:49 to metabolize, and that's why I started the foundation,
08:53 because when I found out about the statistics
08:57 of sexual assault, that it was one in four women,
09:00 by a certain age, one in three women,
09:02 and one in six men, I couldn't tell these stories
09:08 without doing something about it,
09:12 that I needed to do something that I thought,
09:14 why isn't everyone dealing with this?
09:18 Why are we sweeping these issues under the carpet?
09:20 Why are we not, you know, screaming it out
09:23 from the rooftops, because this kind of depravity
09:27 lies in darkness, so we should be shining
09:30 a big fat light on it, and I think the show did,
09:33 in so many ways, and something that was,
09:36 all of a sudden, on television,
09:39 became sort of water cooler talk, and that opened up,
09:43 and this is the thing about sexual assault,
09:45 that it thrives in isolation and shame,
09:49 and the fact that it brought so many people together,
09:54 and communities together, and dissolved,
09:58 and dissipated so much shame,
10:01 because people found community,
10:03 and that is the gift, the beauty, the power,
10:07 the healing power that the show has had.
10:10 That's something that we all need a reminder about,
10:13 and I'm happy to be that person.
10:15 [upbeat music]
10:18 [upbeat music]
10:20 (upbeat music)
10:23 (upbeat music)