Mariska Hargitay never intended to play a character like Olivia Benson, the streetwise NYPD captain with a heart of gold in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
In fact, Hargitay, a former member of the famed improv and sketch comedy troupe the Groundlings, had hoped to become a sitcom star until a psychic told her she was destined for drama. She shared this story on the October 21 episode of The Amy Poehler Show. Podcast “Good Party”.
“How did I become America's favorite sex cop? I should have been you! Harightai joked with the former “Saturday Night Live” star and both women laughed.
Early in her career, Hargitay recalled auditioning for roles on sitcoms, landing small roles in Seinfeld and The Single Guy. She also recalled auditioning for roles on Friends multiple times.
“I think it's Monica. I think it's been so long,” she said.
After wrapping up her recurring role as incompetent clerk Cynthia Hooper in the fourth season of ER, Hargitay found herself under contract to develop a starring role in an Ally McBeal-style drama series.
“That's what I wanted to do. I thought, 'I want to do a drama, but it has to be funny,'” she recalls. “That’s what I felt like, that’s what my gifts were.”
Hargitay, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, recalled how her professional plans changed shortly after she consulted a psychic during a trip to New York.
“I went somewhere on Long Island to see this man and went there,” the Emmy winner recalled. “He started telling me all these amazing things. Something about my mom. Something about a ring. My grandmother had just died, and he said there would be problems with the ring, and there was.”
Hargitay said she listened to the psychic “very carefully” with a serious expression on her face.
“And he said to me… 'Do you see that face you're making now?' Do you see this face?” Hargitay recalled, imitating the psychic's Southern speech. “You will become famous because of this face. You will move to New York and become famous because of this face.”
When Hargitay protested, telling the psychic that she intended to become a “comedian” in Los Angeles, the psychic didn't hear it.
“He looks at me – and this is my favorite moment in my life – he says, 'I don't care what you say. You're going to be famous for having a face like that,” Hargitay recalls.
Soon after, Hargitay was cast as Benson in SVU.
“Six months later I was walking around with this face on my face saying (imitating Benson interrogating a suspect), 'Where were you on Tuesday night?' – she joked.
