Of all the fictional victims Mariska Hargitay has encountered over the years, they almost included a few recognizable faces.
After 25 years of starring as Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the Golden Globe winner recently revealed the “weird” request she frequently gets from celebrities who watch the NBC procedural.
“All the famous people, you know what they want?” she said on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “To be a dead body. It’s so weird.”
Hargitay recalled a “big supermodel” requesting to cameo as a dead body, noting that the unnamed model was “one of the greats.”
“I found out that she loved my show,” recounted Hargitay. “So I said, ‘Oh my gosh,’ I went to the writers, I said, ‘Can she be on the show?’ And she said she wanted to be a dead body, but then I said, ‘No, no, we have this great part for you.’ I call her back, I said, ‘Listen we got it. We’re gonna get you on the show.’ She goes, ‘Oh no, I wanna be a dead body.’”
Mariska Hargitay as Captain Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Will Hart/NBC via Getty Images
She added, “It happens all the time. Why do all these famous people not want lines?”
Meyers even admitted he once “wanted to be a dead body” on the show, and although he was offered a part, he turned it down, explaining, “I don’t want lines, I just wanna be a dead person in the park.”
Hargitay has played Detective Olivia Benson since SVU‘s premiere in 1999, investigating crimes of sexual nature as a member of the NYPD, eventually becoming captain.
Law & Order: SVU continues its record-breaking streak as TV’s longest-running primetime live-action series after it was renewed for Season 26 in March.
