‘Law & Order: SVU’ season 15: Mariska Hargitay talks ‘journey’ of playing Olivia Benson

“Law & Order: SVU” season 15 has already been a crazy ride, and you saw that more than ever on the episode last night with Olivia Benson having to face her attacker William Lewis in court.

But what has this experience been like for Mariska Hargitay? This is a woman who has spent a good almost-third of her life playing this character on the long-running drama, and that would be enough to drive some people either up the wall, or away from the job altogether. However, she is no ordinary actor. In a new interview with Matt Lauer on “The Today Show” this week, she specifically cites the opportunity to work with different people with so many different visions as one of the reasons why she still loves coming to work on the show after all of this time:

“I think it’s been a journey. I think the writing changes now that we have new showrunners. It feels to me like a different show now, which I think is a great thing. After 15 years the show feels so unbelievably fresh, and that’s a gift.”

Also, Hargitay explained a little bit about the episode that she played on Wednesday night, and how she had to struggle to do something a little different with a character who is so often on the side of the protector:

“This episode was traumatizing for me just to shoot it, and I deal with these issues every day. It’s about Olivia being a victim that she continually takes care of, so the tables are turned.”

Will we see Lewis again? We wouldn’t rule it out, given what we saw at the end of the episode with his seizure. Anything is possible, and that is a somewhat unfortunate thing in this context.

What do you want to see happen on “Law & Order: SVU” the rest of the season? Share below.

Photo: NBC