Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T talk SVU’s most memorable guest stars (and who they still want)

The stars of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit have a “list,” and they’re checking it twice — when it comes to the show’s possible guest stars, that is. 

“All my friends call me! A lot of my friends in the music industry want to be on the show, [so] I put their name in the hat with our casting director, and if it comes, it comes,” says Ice-T. “But it's always fun when you can do that, get somebody on the show that wants to be on the show.”

Just take Snoop Dogg, for example, who appeared on SVU in season 20 after binge-watching the show and calling Ice-T.  

“[Snoop’s] like, ‘Yo, cuz. Let me tell you, I ain't going to lie to you, Ice. I ain't never watched your show. Yo, homie, me and wifey watched that thing for like 24 hours, man.’ I was like, ‘So what are you saying? You want to be on the show? Let me put your name in the hat,’” Ice-T recalls of his conversation with the fellow rapper and actor. “Like in the next three episodes, they had Snoop on, and we had a great time.”

New York’s seemingly endless supply of talented theater performers also lend themselves to SVU — which amuses Ice-T to no end. 

“I interrogated SpongeBob off of Broadway, Aladdin, the Genie!” he says. “Whenever I meet people on the show, I'm like, ‘Are you on Broadway? Can you sing?’ And you never know.”

Mariska Hargitay, meanwhile, says there are “a million people” she’d love to welcome onto her NBC procedural, including “anybody on Succession.” To help celebrate season 25, however, SVU will actually be welcoming back some guests from seasons past. 

“We have two characters now [this season] that were guest stars before,” Hargitay teases, “and now they're going to come and do arcs.” 

Succession cast aside, Hargitay has high hopes for getting longtime pal Ali Wentworth back in front of the camera. (Hargitay’s other close friend, Brooke Shields, appeared on the show for an arc in season 19.) 

“Ali's been on the show in a little part,” says Hargitay, “but we need Ali to come back in a bigger part. That's happening.”

And, as would likely be the case with Wentworth, sometimes the same guest stars reappear down the line as entirely different characters. 

“We get to work with great people and go, ‘I want more of them,’” Hargitay explains. “Kelli [Giddish] was a guest star. Peter Scanavino was a guest star. So that's really fun too.”

Speaking of famous faces, Ice-T beams with pride as he talks about how his wife, Coco Austin, has appeared on the show three different times.  

“When they were casting, they were like, ‘Well, we want a curvy girl… Like Coco's size.’ And somebody said, ‘Why don't we just use Coco?’” says Ice-T. “And they’re like, ‘Ask Coco.’ This show's cool like that.” 

Hargitay’s husband is no exception, either. In fact, it’s how the two first met. 

Peter Hermann was cast on the series in season 3 as defense attorney Trevor Langan — a role he’s reprised countless times over the subsequent 22 years — including to help Olivia Benson finalize her son Noah’s adoption in 2015. 

“I wanted to be a mother so much on the show,” says Hargitay of the storyline finally coming to fruition. “And I remember when [former showrunner] Warren Leight pitched me the episode, because it was based on a true story. And we both cried when he told me about it.”

Sitting down for EW's latest digital cover with Ice-T, Hargitay watches the moment Hermann appears in that episode. Ice-T can’t help but rib Hargitay. “Who's that guy?” he says. “Where'd he come from?”

“I don't know, but he's very handsome. Look at Peter with his beard,” Hargitay muses, her eyes welling up again. “I've been through so much on this show!” 

This time, Ice-T holds the humor, instead delivering what he might consider to be one of his famous Ice-Cold Facts: “It's your life,” he tells his friend. 

Hargitay and Hermann, who wed in 2004, share three kids together: August, 17, and Amaya and Andrew, both 12, whom Hargitay and Hermann adopted just months apart in 2011. 

“I thought it would make it so much more resonant and beautiful,” Hargitay says of working on the adoption storyline with her husband. “Again, with knowing our real life story, what's out there in the zeitgeist and in the culture, I think it sort of makes us even go deeper, knowing that that also happened in real life.”

And, while Hargitay acknowledges that Benson’s road to motherhood was long and complicated, she always knew what she wanted for her character. 

“I think that Dick [Wolf] and the powers that be were concerned, obviously, for me being a mother because they didn't want anything to detract from my job. And yet, this is life. People do both, and we have to figure it out. And I believe there was an earlier story [in season 9] where I wanted to adopt, but was turned down for that reason — it's understandable that the job would be too dangerous,” Hargitay says. 

She continues: “So, it was such a big payoff. I was so interested in making the character more complex in that beautiful way that women multitask and do so many jobs. It was important to show that — what women do — and the real work. Because being a parent, I think, is the most important thing that we do in our lives.” 

For more Law & Order: SVU, read EW's latest cover story.

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