Mariska Hargitay Reveals She's Fighting for Kelli Giddish to Return to 'SVU'
Giddish and Hargitay
Forget Benson and Stabler. The real love story of Law & Order: SVU is between best friends and work partners Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish). Giddish joined SVU in Season 13, just as Christopher Meloni departed, and she quickly became both a fan favorite and a Hargitay favorite. When creator Dick Wolf decided to write her off the show in Season 24, fans and Hargitay were not happy. In a new profile for Variety, Hargitay revealed that the whole thing was a "sore subject."
"Kelli is my favorite actor to work with," Hargitay told the magazine. "Kelli is my heart. It's a sore subject. I have a lot of say on the show, but I didn't have enough there."
Hargitay became an executive producer in 2015 and is inarguably the face and soul of the show, but apparently not even Captain Benson can win in a fight with Dick Wolf.
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"I don't like not being listened to, especially when I'm right," she said. "That relationship was one of the most powerful relationships in television because you saw these two bad-ss women, so flawed and so there for each other."
When Season 24 ended, Rollins was pregnant and still settling into life with ADA Carisi (Peter Scanavino), who remains a main character on SVU. She announced that she had taken a job as a criminal behavior professor at Fordham University and was leaving the SVU team. She returned in the Season 25 premiere for her baby's christening, and later helped Benson with the case of the kidnapped girl, Maddie.
The Variety piece revealed that Hargitay is fighting to get Giddish back for next season, but viewers won't even have to wait that long. She'll guest star in Season 25, episode 11, which airs May 2 and is called "Prima Nocta." Rollins joins the team on her day off to help with a case involving a runaway bride. The episode airs Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
