Legislation & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay remains to be having to appropriate folks’s pronunciation of her title on set after 26 seasons.
The veteran actress admitted folks proceed to journey up over her title — which is pronounced with a silent H: Ma-rish-ka — regardless of engaged on the hit NBC authorized drama for many years.
In actual fact, it’s not simply Mariska’s coworkers who wrestle to pronounce her title accurately — her family members do, too, she shared throughout a current podcast look on “Good Grasp With Amy Poehler.”
“How badly have folks screwed up your title?” host Amy Poehler requested the TV legend.
“Oh, I nonetheless stay with it,” Mariska, 61, confessed. “Who was it final night time? Oh, I had a brunch yesterday for my sister and my cousin was there — I’ve identified him from 1994 — and he stored calling me Ma-riss-ka. At one level, I’m going, ‘Ma—’ after which I mentioned, ‘No, simply let it go.’”
Mariska, who has performed SVU’s Captain Olivia Benson since 1999, even devised a seemingly foolproof plan to make sure folks get her title proper at work.
She mentioned, “It occurs on set lots. Now, on the decision sheet, it’s M-A-R-I-S-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-Ok-A. That’s how I put it on the decision sheet, simply so folks go, ‘Oh, acquired it, she’s large on the Hs.’”
Regardless of Mariska’s insistence on spelling her title with a number of Hs on the decision sheet, a few of her coworkers nonetheless get it fallacious. And within the case of longtime costar Christopher Meloni, they do it on objective.
“I get known as Maritza, Marcika, Markiska, however Chris will name me Maritza on set,” she quipped.
Mariska’s title is impressed by her Hungarian roots, having grown up the daughter of legendary American display star Jayne Mansfield and Hungarian-American actor and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.
“It’s a nickname for Maria. It means ‘Little Maria,’” the actress instructed Poehler. “In Hungarian, the Ok-A or Ok-E on the tip of a reputation, it’s a little bit endearment. So the title is definitely Maria, after my grandmother.”
Mariska not too long ago directed an HBO documentary about her iconic mom, titled My Mother Jayne. Jayne was a preferred actress and Playboy centerfold. She died in 1967 at age 34.
Within the documentary, Mariska opens up about discovering that her organic father is the Italian comic and singer Nelson Sardelli, and never Mickey as she grew up believing.
Mickey raised Mariska and her two brothers — Mickey Jr., 66, and Zoltan, 65 — after their mother’s dying. It wasn’t till Mariska noticed an image of Nelson in her 20s that she realized the reality about her parentage.
“It was like the ground fell out from beneath me,” Mariska says within the doc. “Like my infrastructure dissolved.”
Within the movie, Mariska reveals that earlier than her beginning, her mom briefly cut up from Mickey and had a short affair with Nelson. Jayne broke issues off with Nelson and reunited with Mickey earlier than their daughter was born.
The actress displays that, in the end, she “grew up the place [she] was purported to,” including, “I’m Mickey Hargitay’s daughter — that’s not a lie.”
