For nearly three decades, Mariska Hargitay has been the heart and soul of one of television’s defining crime dramas. Hargitay’s Olivia Benson has dominated Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for 27 seasons and counting and as the long-running procedural prepares to hit another historic milestone later this year, Benson and Hargitay are both being celebrated in a new and unexpected way.
Hargitay has received a total of eight Emmy nominations for her work on Law & Order: SVU. Alongside starring in the series, she also serves as an executive producer and director. The long-running drama follows the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit and its detectives as they investigate sexual crimes while giving survivors the support they need. With Hargitay leading from the front, the series has become the longest-running live-action primetime drama in American television history. Season 28 premieres on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and will surpass 600 episodes later this year. New episodes will also stream the following day on Peacock.
Hargitay was earlier this year announced as the host for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards and, to mark the occasion, NBC has officially announced a special Law & Order: SVU marathon which will celebrate all of her Emmy-nominated and Emmy-winning performances. The three-episode event will air on Thursday, Sept. 10, exactly one month before the show’s Season 28 premiere on Oct. 8. The lineup includes her Emmy-nominated performance in “Charisma” (Season 6), airing at 8 PM ET, followed by “911” (Season 7) at 9 PM ET—the episode that earned Hargitay the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2006. The evening concludes with another Emmy-nominated performance in “Undercover” (Season 9), airing at 10 PM ET.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Who Else Stars in ‘Special Victims Unit’?
Hargitay leads alongside Ice T (New Jack City, Rick and Morty) as Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, Peter Scanavino (The Blacklist, Blue Bloods) as Dominick Carisi Jr., Kevin Kane (The Irishman, Chicago P.D.) as Terry Bruno, Juliana Aidén Martinez (Griselda, The Blacklist) as Kate Silva, and Aimé Donna Kelly (Blue Bloods, FBI) as Renee Curry.
Law & Order: SVU returns with its Mariska Hargitay celebration on Sept. 10, while the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards air live on Sept. 14. Season 28 premieres on NBC on Oct. 8, with episodes streaming the next day on Peacock.
Release Date
September 20, 1999
Showrunner
Michael S. Chernuchin, David Graziano
Directors
Jean de Segonzac, David Platt, Peter Leto, Alex Chapple, Juan José Campanella, Norberto Barba, Constantine Makris, Martha Mitchell, Arthur W. Forney, Michael Slovis, Steve Shill, Alex Zakrzewski, Michael Pressman, Helen Shaver, Mariska Hargitay, Michael Smith, Ted Kotcheff, Fred Berner, Jonathan Kaplan, Holly Dale, Jonathan Herron, Jud Taylor, Adam Bernstein, Jim McKay
Writers
Judith McCreary, David Graziano, Michael S. Chernuchin, Daniel Truly, Jonathan Greene, Amanda Green, Lisa Marie Petersen, Allison Intrieri, Lawrence Kaplow, Jose Molina, Matt Klypka, Michael R. Perry, Samantha Corbin-Miller, Barbie Kligman, Robert F. Campbell, Candice Sanchez McFarlane, Gwendolyn M. Parker, René Balcer, Robert Nathan, Wendy West, Speed Weed, Ryan Causey, Chris Brancato, Christos N. Gage
