Won’t they just kiss already? That’s what Law & Order: SVU fans are probably thinking after the decades-long tease between Benson and Stabler. Well, you’re not the only one. Mariska Hargitay also thinks that the two should kiss on the show.
This comes after Benson and Stabler got as close as they ever had to finally kissing. The show teased fans with a tender moment that never paid off, which is beyond frustrating.
Hargitay agrees that they should just kiss.
“To be honest with you, Chris [Meloni] and I thought it should go one way and the powers that be didn’t, so it got changed at the last minute, that near kiss,” she told Variety of the moment. However, creator Dick Wolf “didn’t want” it to happen.
“Our chemistry is undeniable,” she said of her and Meloni. “It’s just the way it is.” However, she said that the actors want to “hold the tension and do what’s right and truthful for both characters.”
So far, Meloni hasn’t returned to the show for the latest season, but Hargitay foresees it eventually happening. “I don’t see why that wouldn’t happen or couldn’t happen. I think that we’re sort of irrevocably locked.”
The scene in question featured Meolin’s Stabler getting close to Benson after trying to protect her. He asked, “Is there something wrong with that? I care for you.” He leaned in to kiss Benson, but Benson pulled away. She said, “Elliot, I want to — I want to. But I can’t.”
“Why not?” Stabler asked as a million fans groaned.
“Elliot, I’m not ready for this,” she said, repeating the statement several times: “I’m not ready for this.”
Mariska Hargitay Talks Chemistry.
As for Hargitay and Meloni’s chemistry, it’s palpable. She talked about how their real life friendship changed her life.
“We met and the rest is history,” she said. “It’s iconic. [He’s] somebody who’s changed my life so much, somebody I love.”
In fact, it may have got both of them hired.
“[Chris] was telling me a story as we walked into the network executive screen test, and he finished his story,” she recalled “It was just like that from the minute one. It was just off and running.”
She knew that she would land the role.
She said, “I was like, ‘If they match me with him, this is my role.’ And he said the same thing. He goes, ‘I want her.’ And then he and I got it,” she recalls, citing Meloni’s “energy, confidence, power,” and “the way he looked.”
She continued, “He was the guy. I just knew he was the guy from reading the script. He was New York, this dark horse, but funny, light. I’m so grateful that those magical stars collided.”