“Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay said she feels like a “victim of secondary trauma” after dealing with dark subject issues on the show while being part of it for more than two decades.
Speaking to Interview magazine, the 60-year-old actress said playing detective Olivia Benson on the hit NBC series for 25 years has been a “process” of learning how to sift out the material she has to deal with about sex crimes on the show that were “ripped” from real-life headlines.
“When I started the show, I wasn’t aware of how deeply it would go into me,” Hargitay said during a chat for the magazine with Selena Gomez. “My husband Peter [Hermann] is always like, anytime I go anywhere, my first question is, ‘What’s the crime rate here?’ So it’s on the brain.”
“There’s been times when I didn’t know how to protect myself, and I think I was definitely a victim of secondary trauma from being inundated with these stories and knowing that they were true,” she added. “Those were the parts that I didn’t know how to metabolize, just because of the sheer volume of it.”
Mariska Hargitay says “I was definitely a victim of secondary trauma” after acting on “Law & Order: SVU” for so long.
“When I started the show, I wasn’t aware of how deeply it would go into me. My husband Peter [Hermann] is always like, anytime I go anywhere, my first question… pic.twitter.com/hAaM8iknk8
— Variety (@Variety) September 24, 2024
“That’s also why I started Joyful Heart [Foundation], so I would feel like, well, at least I’m doing something about it,” Hargitay continued, noting the non-profit she created in 2004.
The mission statement of her organization said it is “to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse, support survivors’ healing, and end this violence forever.”
“While we understand that our vision may not be achievable in our lifetimes, we firmly believe that violence and abuse are preventable,” it added. ”In support of our vision and mission, we have developed and adopted a set of values and guiding principles that inform and inspire our approach to all that we do…”
At one point, the actress also said, through her part in the show, she’s learned a lot about “sexual assault, domestic violence,” and “child abuse.”
“I learned that one in three women will be assaulted, and one in six men,” Hargitay said. “That’s what started the foundation for me. That’s when I started going, ‘I have to do something,’ because the show was obviously tackling the subject matter, but when I learned the statistics, I said, ‘Why isn’t everyone talking about this?’ And if I didn’t know, I figured nobody knows what an epidemic violence against women is.”
