‘Law & Order SVU’ Mariska Hargitay Once Had to Tone Down Her Chemistry With Chris Meloni

Mariska Hargitay once opened up about the natural chemistry she’s shared with her ‘Law & Order’ co-star Chris Meloni.

Law & Order SVU stars Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni were known for their natural chemistry from the moment they were on screen. But there was a moment where the pair needed to rein in their chemistry under unique circumstances.

Mariska Hargitay couldn’t share her natural chemistry with Chris Meloni after returning to ‘Law & Order SVU’

Hargitay felt she and Meloni were compatible from the start. As is the case with many co-stars, there was an initial process where the two had to acquaint themselves with each other. But it didn’t take long for them to feel each other out. Hargitay knew Meloni was her guy from the second she laid eyes on him.

“I walked in, saw him, and I went, ‘That guy. That’s the guy.’ It went deep, very fast. We both knew that it was something big,” she once told People. “I won’t say that I fully understood it, but I knew that meeting him was important and life-changing. My father, my husband, [Law & Order creator] Dick Wolf and Chris are the four pillar men in my life. And that happened early.”

Even after working with Meloni for some time, Hargitay still couldn’t pinpoint the source of their bond.

“I wish I could take credit for Stabler and Benson’s chemistry. I can’t take credit. It was a gift from God from the moment we met. Chris has an amazing sense of humor and I love to laugh. We got each other from day one. We are similar and different. Luckily those differences compliment each other,” Hargitay once said according to Live Journal.

That natural chemistry translated into their work as Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler. It was so palpable that it led many to ship the pair as a couple. Both onscreen and occasionally even off-screen, too. Their partnership became such a valuable piece of SVU that it might’ve been impossible to imagine one without the other at one point. But it was a possibility that would have to be briefly entertained after Hargitay’s pregnancy.

The Emmy winner was expecting her son August to arrive. Seeing as there was no way to write around her pregnancy, the solution was to have Hargitay miss more episodes of SVU than she ever had. The episode after her return, Hargitay and Meloni wanted to emulate the feeling of two close friends reuniting after some time apart. This required them to dial back their chemistry a few notches, which was harder than it sounds.

“In the episode tonight, we had to work hard at not showing our chemistry. We wanted it to look rusty, but it was hard, because we were falling into our own rhythm. It was very fun playing that scene in the diner,” she said.

Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni still had their chemistry after reuniting a decade later

One thing that’s been proven is that Hargitay’s and Meloni’s chemistry never seems to go away. After Hargitay, Meloni would be the next one to leave the Law & Order universe. Only his hiatus would last for a decade, with the general consensus at the time being Meloni was completely done with the show.

But significant time passed, and Meloni was enticed back into Dick Wolf’s franchise with his own spin-off series Organized Crime. This meant it was only a matter of time before Elliot Stabler crossed paths with Olivia Benson. When they did, both picked up right where they left off as if no time at all had passed.

“It’s effortless, and it’s weird, and I always look at it as some sort of gift,” Hargitay said in a separate People interview. “So much of it has to do with our shared sense of humor, shared perspective, our now history.”