Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay is opening up about the palpable shift that occurred on the set of the hit crime procedural once the show secured its first woman to serve as showrunner.
“I had a secret fantasy of having a female showrunner for … a few years,” Hargitay, 62, told Variety in an interview published on Saturday, June 12, commenting on the hit NBC show hiring Michele Fazekas as the show’s season 27 showrunner. (Fazekas, 49, worked in the show’s writers’ room for seasons 3 through 7.)
“Michele and I always connected. She was so smart, and those years on SVU were some of my favorites,” the actress continued. “Her episodes during that time were the best ones.”
Fazekas had just finished working on Prime Video’s Gen V when she became the first woman to showrun the Dick Wolf series. While also speaking with Variety, Fazekas said there is a “great synchronicity with how we all think” on- and off-set, which only benefits the show’s overall culture.
“We were all rowing in the same direction,” Fazekas told the outlet. “There’s no toxicity. Having worked in really toxic environments, it’s like, oh my God, I don’t know what to do with myself! We all just want to make a good show and not make it harder than it needs to be.”
Hargitay added that with Fazekas now steering the ship, so to speak, things feel both “old and new” on the show.
Mariska Hargitay Getty Images
“It’s new and coming home at the same time,” she explained. “There are emotional beats and comedy beats that are so specific to me and to the origins of the character. Obviously, it was time. It’s what SVU needed more than anything, and it was the perfect fit. It’s all the elements coming together in a perfect way.”
She continued, “I want to highlight that word: Team. That is the difference now. There’s such a sense of lock arm, ladies. Let’s do this together — and, at the same time, push each other to be excellent, to be great, and we know that we can do it and we will figure it out.”
While the on-set collaboration and non-toxic work environment certainly aided everyone on- and off-set, Fazekas couldn’t help but point out how hard Hargitay continues to work since making her SVU debut back in 1999.
“She does not phone it in,” Fazekas told Variety of Hargitay’s work ethic. “She is not just collecting a paycheck. She makes everyone better.”
After wrapping season 27 — yes, Fazekas did write the season’s finale — Hargitay told Variety she couldn’t help but grow emotional when considering all she has accomplished on the show.
“Twenty-seven years in and I’m thinking, that’s one of my favorite episodes — that Michele could dig in and write this story that’s haunting me,” Hargitay said of the season’s finale. “Brenna is elevating details and tweaking constantly. We all play hard and play our best.”
