Mariska Hargitay can’t help teasing one thing she might get to do on Emmys night. She’s welcomed me into her Manhattan home, and we’ve wended through various anterooms — an Emmy statuette hanging out on a shelf here, a needlepoint pillow a fan gave her at a Broadway stage door there, until we’ve gotten to the living room, where her shepherd mix Kaia sits perched on a settee. There are a few concepts Hargitay, slated to be the Sept. 14 telecast’s host, isn’t ready to share, but she’s been brainstorming with a group of writers during lunch breaks on the set of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” — Hargitay’s currently shooting Season 28.
She stipulates that it’s all subject to change, but can’t hold in her favorite possibility. It seems hard to fathom, given the role that’s placed her in the modern pantheon of TV stars. On NBC’s “SVU,” all about the pursuit and prosecution of sex criminals, Hargitay’s Olivia Benson has risen through the ranks of the NYPD to captain, doing so with a stern approach to the perps she arrests and a heaping measure of empathy for their victims.
But more than ever before, Hargitay’s trying new things. Her “SVU” job is all-consuming for 10 months a year, so hosting the Emmys is a welcome break from routine. I want to hang out with them.” We already knew that Hargitay could do the specific job of network-TV star as well as anyone alive.
But, at 62, she’s experiencing a burst of adventuresome curiosity that many stars half her age can’t match — and operating at the peak of powers she never had to access on “SVU.” This year, she made her Broadway debut in the one-woman show “Every Brilliant Thing.” And at the Emmys, she isn’t just the host, but a nominee for directing and producing “My Mom Jayne,” the HBO documentary about the complicated legacy of Hargitay’s late mother, the actress Jayne Mansfield. Hargitay began shooting her film in 2023 while “SVU” was in production. Yes, as the New York basketball fans for whom Hargitay became an on-screen avatar would say: Let’s fucking go.
Hargitay has long supported the Knicks, and considers point guard Jalen Brunson a friend; when she mentions his name, Kaia bolts upright happily. (As if paying her back for her many evenings spent courtside, he attended a performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” and the New York premiere of “My Mom Jayne.”) “Mariska is my favorite New York Knicks fan,” Brunson says. As a lifelong fan of ‘SVU,’ her support means the world to me. I’m truly grateful to have her in my corner.“ But her Madison Square Garden appearances at the NBA Finals — during the historic Game 4 comeback, sitting, awestruck, next to Taylor Swift and, postgame, staggering across the court in a state of ecstatic shock — made clear that she’s now the fans’ MVP, and a star whose fame transcends “SVU.” The coverage of the Knicks as a uniting phenomenon featured Hargitay front and center, which only emphasized the position she’s come to occupy in our culture.
She’s a national best friend, unabashedly and perhaps unfashionably earnest, inviting us all to join her in the cheering section. The Knicks clinched the championship in Game 5, which fell on a Saturday, and Hargitay’s evening performance kept her from watching live. She’d jokingly-but-not asked the theater if Daniel Radcliffe, who’d originated the role, could fill in for her that night, and the stage manager was unamused.
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