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LOS ANGELES – Mariska Hargitay was suffering from a mild case of laryngitis and had lost to Kyra Sedgwick in the Emmy Awards’ Best Actress in a Drama Series race the night before. But here she was at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, spirited and engaging. The star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (“SVU”) was passionate as usual when talking about her work to help victims of sexual and child abuse and domestic violence, a commitment that’s an offshoot of her TV series’ subject matter.

But first, the daughter of 1950s bombshell Jayne Mansfield and former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay offered this funny anecdote about walking the Emmy red carpet with Christopher Meloni, her detective partner in “SVU” for 12 years now.

“Chris and I are married in a way,” said the actress, whose real-life husband is frequent “SVU” guest actor Peter Hermann (as lawyer Trevor Langan). “Chris and I were walking down the red carpet and a reporter asked me about my dress. I was wearing flowers in my hair and I had this pink dress. I was asked what inspired the dress. I said, ‘My anniversary was two days ago. I wanted a dress that reminded me of my wedding dress.’ The interviewer turned to Chris and went, ‘That’s so sweet. How long have you been married?’ It was so hilarious. I said, ‘Well, I’ve been married to this one for 12 years. To my other husband – six years.’ I do feel like Chris is my husband. It’s crazy but I spend more time with him. I’ve spent 14- to 15- hour days with him for the last 12 years.”

Sexual tension

Many fans of the series are wondering when detectives Olivia Benson (Mariska) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher) will finally do something about the sexual tension between them. Neal Baer, who sat in the interview with co-executive producer Ted Kotcheff, said, “There’s a great moment in episode two of the new season where Chris and Mariska are sitting together and talking. The camera is going in closer. I sent it out as a little bubble tweet through Twitter. I got a thousand hits on that. We do like a 30-second tease. The chemistry between the two is palpable. They’re talking to each other but you get an undercurrent. I say that Benson is going to get something that she’s always wanted this season. I’ll leave it at that.”

“Really?” Mariska reacted with a smile. “Yes,” Neal replied. Laughing, she quipped, “This is going to be the best year ever.”

Neal added, “Henry Cusick from ‘Lost’ comes on for the first two episodes and he’s interested in Mariska.”

But the undercurrent of sparks between Benson and Stabler is one the reasons why “SVU” is one of the longest-running TV series today. “I think Chris and I have a gift of chemistry,” Mariska volunteered. “I say it’s a gift because I don’t think you can fake chemistry. From the minute we met, we were connected. We have similar personalities. We have the same sense of humor. We trust each other. We’re like brother-sister, husband-wife – it’s a very complicated relationship and that’s the gift of it.”

But wait, Neal disclosed that Maria Bello, Mariska’s close friend in real life, will come in to stir things up. “It was my dream to have Maria guest on the show,” he said. “Maria is coming for two episodes. Let me say that when she comes on, she really starts things happening in a way that Benson never expected and it will change her life.”

“Aha, sounds good,” Mariska commented with a laugh.

Memories of mom

The former Miss Beverly Hills was asked if she has any memories of her popular mother. Mariska was only 3 years old when she and her two brothers, mom Jayne and her boyfriend, Sam Brody, figured in a car accident. The children were relatively unhurt but Jayne and Sam were killed. “I do have very brief memories of her when I was a little girl,” Mariska said. “I have seen many of her movies. There are some I haven’t.”

Of another veteran actress, Ann Margret, who won Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series in the recent Emmy Awards for her performance in “SVU,” Mariska gushed, “She was a dream and a treasure. It was such a coup that she came to the show. She immediately started telling me all these details about my personal life. She clearly read up on Chris and me. It was so touching because she knew all about us. She was incredibly inspiring to work with. When we did this scene in the hallway – she played an alcoholic – it was so good. In a drama, we don’t have those many moments where you find the comedy. It’s the mark of a great actor when you can find the comedy and humanity in a scene. After that scene, I said, ‘You just got yourself an Emmy nomination.’ I was so happy when she actually did.”

Joyful mission

We asked Mariska about the Joyful Heart Foundation which she founded in 2004 to help women heal from their abuse and violence trauma through various types of health and wellness programs.

“Our mission is to heal, educate and empower victims,” explained the actress, who choked with emotion at one point in our talk as she talked about this cause. “Victims of these crimes carry so much shame that absolutely belongs with the perpetrator. But it stays with the victim. It has been our goal to nurture the courage to come forward because it’s so difficult. Many times, these victims don’t have a voice.”

She added, “After the victims go through retreat programs, we see them change and see the light go back on. There was one woman in particular named Jenny. When I first met Jenny, she had a very hard shell, rough exterior, just completely guarded for a good reason. Seven days later, I didn’t even recognize her. There was openness. It was one of the first times I realized that this really worked. People begin again and reinvest in themselves.”

Reducing backlog

Mariska is championing efforts to reduce the rape kit backlog. She testified on the backlog issue before members of the US Congress. Valerie Neumann, a rape victim who appeared with Mariska in the Congress meeting, explained in her blog what a rape kit is. When a person reports a rape to a hospital or the police, he or she undergoes an examination to gather any DNA evidence the perpetrator may have left on the victim’s body. Valerie wrote, “If tested, a rape kit can identify an unknown suspect, confirm the presence of a known suspect, connect crime scene evidence to identify serial offenders, affirm a victim’s version of events, and exonerate innocent suspects.”

The actress deplored that many rape kits were never sent to crime labs to be tested or they languished for years without being tested. She said, “You would assume, if somebody goes through a four to six-hour invasive, traumatizing exam at the doctor’s office, that the police test it. I’ve just learned there are thousands of these rape kits sitting in storage facilities in the US.”

“There’s a one in five chance that your case, if you are indeed raped, will actually go to trial. I felt that it is unacceptable that when you are raped, your kit is sitting in a crime lab facility somewhere, not being tested. I went to Congress and we did a hearing about it because I feel that every rape kit should be tested. Imagine the perpetrators that we would catch. My goal is to eradicate the backlog of untested DNA rape kits.”

Mariska feels fulfilled because of the synergy between her series and her advocacy on behalf of women’s support organizations. “The other thing that’s so exciting about Joyful and ‘SVU’ is that they’ve merged in so many ways,” said the actress. “What I’ve set out to do in my foundation is to teach young women how to follow their instincts, keep themselves safe and have a new kind of awareness that sometimes they’re not taught or sometimes they don’t have.

“We teach young girls not to drive drunk,” she stressed. “I teach them the buddy system. It’s like how you would have a designated driver. If you go out with your girlfriend, you don’t leave each other until you’re home. That’s the pact you make at the beginning of the night. I always tell young girls that whatever choice they make, they have to consider how they are going to feel about it the next morning.”

Mariska cited the significance of a necklace that her character wears. “I’ve been wearing a necklace on the show for 12 years,” she pointed out. “It says ‘Fearlessness.’ I always try to say you feel the fear and you do it anyway. But you feel the fear and you make informed choices, things that keep you safe and the people around you safe.”

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com.