Mariska Hargitay still remembers the profound sense of “magic” Robin Williams brought to the set during his 2008 appearance on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Hargitay reflected on her brief work with the actor for an episode on the series. Williams — who died in 2014 — guest starred in the Season 9 episode “Authority” and appeared as an anti-authoritarian vigilante.
“To watch flow happening — that which is invisible — he was the personification of it,” she explained at the start of a clip shared on TikTok. He was magnificent. Different every time, funny every time, and truthful and believable.”
“And what is happening?” she continued, recalling her mindset while witnessing him perform. “How am I so lucky that I get to witness it? It was magic.”
“Everything was electric with him. Like there was no line between sort of acting and who he was as a person,” she explained. “And the most fun person and the most generous, and it was pure joy.”
Hargitay went on to reminisce about the late actor’s ability to make those around him “feel so special.” This, she said, extended to her eldest son, August Miklos Friedrich Hermann, whom she said was around age 2 or 3 when he got to meet Williams.
“Robin grabbed him and picked him up and so kind and doing voices for him,” she recalled. “He made all of us feel so special.”
Visibly moved by the memory, Hargitay’s voice became thick with emotion.
“And you’re just in this moment going, ‘I’m pinching myself that I get to live in the same time with somebody so magnetic and so magic and so generous’ that you go, ‘I’m just different because we got to breathe, same oxygen,” she said. “It was pretty great.”
