Law & Order: SVU’s 25th anniversary season is almost here. It’s hard to believe the procedural has been going strong since its 1999 pilot. What is also still going strong since 1999 is Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler. The fan-favorite characters, played by Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni, were partners for the first 12 seasons until Meloni left. When he returned to the franchise for his own spinoff, Organized Crime, it’s like nothing had changed. Bensler's relationship continues to grow, and now Hargitay is looking back at when she met her partner-in-crime.
Ahead of the NBC drama’s big milestone, Hargitay spoke to People for its cover story, where she spoke about her time on SVU. She and Meloni met while they were both auditioning for a then-new Law & Order spinoff centering on sex crimes. Hargitay had actually thought her future co-star was Homefront actor John Slattery. Yet despite the case of mistaken identity, the two immediately hit it off once they actually knew who the other was and didn’t want it to go any other way while doing the screen test:
