Mariska Hargitay says Christopher Meloni's mom changed the original title of 'Law & Order: SVU'
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- Christopher Meloni's mom changed the original title of "Law & Order: SVU," Mariska Hargitay said.
- Meloni, who stars on the police drama with Hargitay, said the original title was "Sex Crimes."
- But Hargitay added that Meloni's mother wanted the title changed, so she called creator Dick Wolf.
Mariska Hargitay revealed that her "Law & Order: SVU" costar Christopher Meloni's mother got the original title of the police drama changed with a single phone call.
Hargitay and Meloni appeared on Monday's episode of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" to discuss their time on the NBC drama, created by Dick Wolf.
"It was called 'Sex Crimes,' and I literally went... 'Okay,'" Meloni told Meyers of his initial thoughts while reading the show's pilot script. "As did my mother."
According to Meloni, when he told his mother he'd secured the role of Detective Elliot Stabler, her first reaction was: "Can they change the name?"
"And then she called Dick and he did change the name," Hargitay, who plays Detective Olivia Benson on the show, revealed.
Meloni also hilariously recalled doing publicity for the show prior to its premiere, when the working title was still "Sex Crimes," only to be stopped by a frantic publicist who alerted him of the name change.
"She came running up, [and said], 'Don't ever say those words again,'" Meloni joked of the publicist's reaction to the original title of "Law & Order: SVU."
Meloni's character Stabler was Benson's trusted partner on the first 12 seasons of "SVU." The two characters shared a certain chemistry throughout the seasons (with many fans rooting for a romance between them), but Stabler ultimately remained faithful to his wife, Kathy.
Meloni left "SVU" after the 12th season, but guest-starred in an episode in season 22, where Stabler's wife Kathy is killed by a car bomb. He's currently reprising his role as Stabler on the new spinoff "Law & Order: Organized Crime."
Hargitay previously weighed in on the likelihood of a romance between Stabler and Benson in February, telling People, "It's such a complicated relationship that I think we just want to respect the complexity and the nuance of it."