TV Romance
‘SVU’s Mariska Hargitay Calls Benson & Stabler ‘Soulmates,’ Reveals When They Should Get Together
It’s the question that Law & Order: SVU fans have had for now 26 seasons: Will Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) get together? Unsurprisingly, Hargitay was asked how she feels about that dynamic — the former partners have shared quite a few nearing intimate moments, including a near-kiss, since he returned to New York and joined the Organized Crime Control Bureau — when she appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast, released on Wednesday, June 25.
According to Hargitay, Benson and Stabler should end up together “maybe on the last episode,” she shared. “I think that’s when they should get together.” (Hargitay didn’t say if she meant the last episode of SVU or Organized Crime, but right now the former has been renewed and the latter has yet to be.)
When Alex Cooper asked if she wants them to be together at the end, Hargitay said, “If it’s right. We’ll see when we get there. We are soulmates in a way. We are. And I think that. I mean, Chris has had a profound impact on my life, my artistry. I think we’ve had a big impact on each other. And so Olivia and Elliot are. But let’s see where the story takes us, you know?” Watch her full interview on “Call Her Daddy” in the video below.
Fans have wanted the two to get together for years, but every time it seems like something’s going to happen, one or both of them pull away. (Let’s be honest: Even his wife’s death was about Benson and Stabler.) Since Meloni’s return to the world of Law & Order with his own spinoff, he and Hargitay have been guest starring on each other’s shows. After her appearance in the second episode of the fifth season of Organized Crime, TV Insider spoke with Meloni about the characters’ relationship.
“I think we and the writers are trying to find the way, a satisfying way home. We just don’t know what that home is,” Meloni said. As for how Stabler feels about her and if he even knows completely, “there could be a whole new spinoff on unpacking that,” he admitted. “I think it’s wrapped up in how he’s wired, how he’s built, his Catholicism, the commitments he’s made and promises and complicated.”
He compared working together to “getting back on the bicycle. It’s just really a shorthanded love affair, professional admiration, mutual admiration. We just speak the same language and we just cut to the chase of what it is we’re trying to accomplish in the scene, in the arc, whatever it may be.”
Hargitay also spoke about her real-life friendship with Meloni on the podcast.
“We are just connected. We are so close. It’s like we’ve been through the battle together. We know each other so well. We love each other so much. We respect each other so much. We connected, obviously, by living these stories and going so deep together for so many years, acting, and he and I really bond over comedy. We have a very similar sense of humor,” she shared. “It’s shared perspective, it’s shorthand, we are so comfortable with each other, we deeply trust each other, we know, like, whatever he needs, I will always be there for him, and that’s mutual. And we have grown together, we’ve known each other 27 years.”
But what do you think? Do you want Benson and Stabler to get together? If so, when? Let us know in the comments section below.
