Mariska Hargitay Remembers the ‘Pure Joy’ of Working With Robin Williams on ‘SVU’

Mariska Hargitay will never forget Robin Williams’ time on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Reflecting on some of the most memorable guest stars from the long-running crime drama, 62-year-old Hargitay singled out Williams as the one who left the deepest impression.

“The most memorable Law & Order cameo for me was Robin Williams,” she told Variety in an Instagram Reel posted on Wednesday, August 19. “We had so much fun, and there was so much joy. He was such a light.”

Williams appeared in the 2008 episode “Authority,” the 200th episode of SVU.

The Good Will Hunting star played Merritt Rook, an audio engineer who impersonates a police officer during a series of unsettling phone calls. The performance gave Williams an opportunity to bring his trademark intensity and unpredictability to the crime drama.

For Hargitay, watching him work was unforgettable.

“Everything was electric with him,” she explained in a previous interview with Vanity Fair in 2024. “There was no line between acting and who he was as a person. The most fun person and the most generous, and it was pure joy. And he made all of us feel so special.”

She also recalled a particularly touching moment involving her young son, August, who was around 2 or 3 at the time. Williams picked him up, entertained him with different voices and made the child feel completely at ease.

Looking back she recalled: ‘I’m pinching myself that I get to live in the same time with somebody so magnetic and so magic and so generous that…we got to breathe the same oxygen.”

Williams died by suicide in August 2014 at his home in California, at the age of 63.