Mariska Hargitay Was Mistaken for a Real Police Officer by a Lost Little Girl

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It's unrealistic to expect actors to live up to the heroic ideals of the characters they play, but if anyone does, it's Mariska Hargitay. Not only did her role as sex-crime-busting detective (now captain!) Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit inspire her to start her own foundation to help survivors of sexual and domestic violence, but she recently put a scene on pause to help an actual New Yorker in need: a little girl who'd gotten separated from her mom.

Hargitay was in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan on April 10, shooting a scene for the season finale of SVU, when she was approached by a young girl who, per People, had seen the badge Hargitay was wearing as part of her costume and assumed she was a police officer. The girl had lost track of her mother while at the playground and asked for Hargitay's help, and according to a witness, Hargitay immediately halted production so she could reunite the family, which took about 20 minutes.

After 25 years playing badass Benson, Mariska Hargitay is used to the public strongly identifying her with the character. Opening up about her three kids' experiences of her fame, the actor said that her youngest, Andrew, “thinks I play a cop on TV, end of story,” and added, “So he asked, ‘Why does everyone say “I love you” when we're walking down the street?’” Tell me you wouldn't say “I love you” to Mariska if you saw her on the sidewalk. Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't. Of course you would.

“She walks the walk and she talks the talk,” her costar Christopher Meloni told Glamour of our 2021 Woman of the Year. “She’s a force for good at whatever she does, whether it’s being a mother or being an advocate or being an actress or being a friend.” Or helping kids!

Originally Appeared on Glamour