One of Mariska Hargitay’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-stars had some kind words for the veteran actress ahead of the show’s final episode of 2024.
The long-running police procedural, which launched its record 26th season this fall, has starred Hargitay as Olivia Benson since the show premiered on NBC in late 1999. Peter Scanavino, who plays ADA Dominick Carisi Jr., has been a series regular on SVU since 2013.
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In an interview with People that was conducted ahead of SVU’s fall finale, which aired on Thursday, Nov. 21, the 44-year-old actor discussed his friendship with Hargitay, 60, and the advice she offers him as a fellow parent.
Hargitay is “a very playful person” who is “totally collaborative, open to whatever,” Scanavino said, adding that he finds those qualities to be “really impressive.”
Though the actress has “strong opinions,” she is “completely willing to be open to other points of view and understand and sit there and listen and talk and joke and all that,” he said.
Scanavino told the magazine that Hargitay’s openness makes her “invaluable as a friend, as a parent, as an actor.” The father of three, who shares his kids with wife Lisha Bai, looks up to Hargitay, who shares her own three children with husband Peter Hermann. He considers Hargitay to be one of his few parenting “role models.”
Scanavino and Bai got married in 2011, roughly two years before he joined SVU. The couple tends to keep details about their life together, including about their children, offline.
Now that the fall finale of SVU has aired, fans of the show will have to wait until next year to learn how the rest of Season 26 will unfold. New episodes are scheduled to begin airing in mid-January, with the winter premiere slated for Thursday, Jan. 16.
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