Mariska Hargitay Says It Was Wrong to Meet Her Future Husband on ‘Law & Order’

Law & Order SVU not only served as Mariska Hargitay’s breakthrough role but also unexpectedly helped her find her soulmate.

Mariska Hargitay Was Told She Wouldn’t Find Love on the Set of Law & Order

During her single years, Hargitay found it challenging to meet the right person. The demanding hours on the set of Law & Order SVU left her with little time to date. A friend of Hargitay’s encouraged her to have a life outside of work, doubting she’d find a partner on the show.

“She threw a dinner party for me and she was like, ‘Mariska, you need to get out more’ … I could never go anywhere because [I was on set] 15 hours a day, 16 hours a day every day,” Hargitay shared on Live with Kelly and Ryan (via Femalefirst). “She said, ‘No prince charming is going to walk in on the show and you’re going to marry him.’”

Ironically, that’s exactly what happened. Actor Peter Hermann joined the show for a guest role, and he caught Hargitay’s attention from the start. Even her co-star Chris Meloni noticed her excitement.

“I was so nervous and a little bit giddy. It was funny because Meloni was there. He was watching me and he’d never seen me act like this – ever,” Hargitay recalled.

Hermann later asked Hargitay out on a date. They went to a church service on their first night out, where Hargitay realized he was the one, bringing her to tears.

“I just started sobbing. Peter thought I was crying because I was so moved by the service,” she told People. “No, it was because I was just overwhelmed, realizing he was the one.”

A Different Kind of Engagement

The certainty Hargitay felt with Hermann made their engagement unique compared to her previous ones, giving her a confidence she hadn’t experienced before.

“I had been engaged before, but what I felt for Peter I had never felt before — it was knowing that someone else put you first and that you put him first,” she said in a 2010 interview with Good Housekeeping. “A lot of people have doubts on their wedding day, but I was never so sure and happy. We were going into the unknown together and were taking care of each other the way you’re supposed to when you are married.”

Her instincts proved right. Despite a few relationship challenges, the couple married in 2004 and have been together for 19 years, sharing three children, two of whom are adopted. Hargitay believes their marriage works so well because of how they balance each other out.

“I bring him out, he brings me in; he slows me down, I make him go faster,” she said. “Sometimes we want to do really different things, and that is hard to navigate. We have to sit down and figure out how to carve this time out for you and this for me, because we need both. That’s just the way we are, so let’s just make peace with it.”

Hargitay also adhered to some sage advice she received about maintaining celebrity marriages: never leave each other for more than two weeks at a time.

“I don’t always know what he’s thinking, but we want the same things. We trust that the other person wants what we want and shares the same values. That’s our gift. Even if we don’t talk all day, we are connected,” she said.

The role on Law & Order SVU not only defined Mariska Hargitay’s career but also serendipitously led her to her perfect partner, proving that sometimes love finds us in the most unexpected places.