Mariska Hargitay On Facing Fear, Uncovering Family Truths, And Finding Inspiration In The Knicks

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Hoda Kotb (1:08)

My guest today has spent much of her life helping people bring their stories into the light. So for more than 25 years, Mariska Hargitay has played Olivia Benson on Law & Order SVU, fighting for survivors to be heard. Offscreen, through her Joyful Heart Foundation, Mariska has done much of the same.

But this chapter's different. In her deeply personal documentary, My Mom Jayne, Mariska turns the camera on herself to explore the loss of her mother, uncovering long-held family secrets, and questions of identity, grief and belonging. At the same time, Mariska is making her Broadway debut in Every Brilliant Thing. It's a play about finding joy and hope in the midst of life's hardest moments. Together, these projects reveal a powerful truth. Healing begins when we are finally willing to bring what is hidden into the light. I'm Hoda Kotb, and this is my podcast, Making Space.

Okay, first of all, brava. Is that what they say?

Mariska Hargitay (2:11)

Yes.

Hoda Kotb (2:11)

On Broadway, I mean, you were doing something for the very first time at age 62

Mariska Hargitay (2:18)

Yeah.

Hoda Kotb (2:18)

So that gets claps anyway.

Tell me what it's like to do something like that for the very first time. Stepping on the Broadway stage.

Mariska Hargitay (2:26)

Well, it was terrifying.

Hoda Kotb (2:29)

Yeah.

Mariska Hargitay (2:29)

I mean, cripplingly so, terrifying. It really came and grabbed me and I had no idea what was happening. First of all, I read the script, which is the play. It is magnificent and when I read it, I thought it fell out of the sky from God because it was one of the most beautiful and emotional and poignant and hilarious and meaningful and life-affirming plays ever that I loved and I just couldn't believe my good fortune and to go in after Daniel Radcliffe and it was an immediate yes and then I thought, everyone's like, you're going to have to get your energy up and I was like, sweetheart, I've been on SVU for like 89 years. My energy is good. I got this. But as we started rehearsal, every day at three o'clock in the first week, I was like, I'm sorry, I need to nap because my brain was processing so much and it was so difficult and everything about it, Hoda, was new.

And yet it was such an incredible thing because talk about feel the fear and do it anyway. And I keep saying to my kids, guys, we can do hard things.

Hoda Kotb (3:44)

We can do hard things.

Mariska Hargitay (3:45)

And to get to the other side of it and then be in like euphoria, to be now it is the most, I can't wait. I can't wait every night. I cannot wait to go on every night.

Hoda Kotb (3:55)

The play is called Every Brilliant Thing. And it's about someone who starts off as a young child and goes into adulthood, looking for things to make life worth living, basically is what it nutshells into.

So for people who at home, because I think when you're listening to this, you're thinking I want to try something scared. I want to try it, but they already know me. I'm so good at thing A. I don't know how I'll do at thing B. If I try it and flop, what if the headlines even in my neighborhood are, she couldn't do it, she couldn't handle it.

Mariska Hargitay (4:25)

She should stick to TV. There were all those crazy headlines in my head. And that's the thing that has been, I just love life. I love getting older. I love experience and wisdom and learning new things. And it was one of these things where SVU, obviously it's been such an incredible journey. And then I made my film about my mom, also a new experience, directing a film for the first time. But I do understand storytelling, but there was nothing familiar about this. And so going into something from here to here, that's what was terrifying. And yet, isn't that the point of it? And being brave and being courageous and to feel those feelings again and be not know what's going to happen was so incredibly exciting, terrifying, yet exciting.