them. You’re keen on them. They’re the tv world’s longest-running Will They, Will not They.
For greater than 20 years, Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler and Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson have been busting perps and combating crime on NBC’s Regulation & Order franchise. They’ve additionally received rather a lot of chemistry, and Meloni, who’s a part of ipromiseyoumedia’s 2025 Sexiest Man Alive concern, is aware of it.
So we needed to ask: What is the sexiest a part of the “EO” (Elliot and Olivia, as followers have dubbed them) relationship?
“Gosh. They know one another in an unstated approach, and I feel it is the depth of their friendship,” Meloni, 64, says. “They usually’ve made these stabs or these makes an attempt at making this factor one other factor…”
Meloni is, in fact, referencing the notorious close to kiss and the (multiple) “Love you” that Stabler has thrown Benson’s approach — the newest of which occurred in the course of the season 27 premiere of SVU earlier this fall.
“For Benson and Stabler to get collectively, it’s onerous! Onerous,” Meloni says, instantly erupting into laughter at his unintended innuendo. “Am I blushing?”
However, after slightly insistence that something is feasible if given sufficient time, Meloni acquiesces.
“Oh, I’ve the vitality, simply not the time,” he insists, eyebrows wagging.
All kidding apart, nonetheless, the season actor will get severe when requested what his supreme ending for Stabler can be, if he might write it himself.
“Some conclusion to Benson and Stabler,” he says thoughtfully. “I feel each characters, Stabler and Benson, ought to journey off into the sundown.”
Season 5 of Organized Crime is presently airing on NBC and might be streamed on Peacock. Meloni has been taking part in Stabler since first touchdown the function in 1999 reverse Hargitay.
After departing SVU in 2011, he reprised the character in 2021 for the Organized Crime spinoff collection.
“Organized Crime Stabler is sexier,” Meloni says. “There’s a sure nice wine high quality to him.”
The truth is, Meloni says he is all the time had a imaginative and prescient for the character — courting all the way in which again to 1999.
“After I received the half, I believed after studying the script, ‘Wow. This can be a actually disturbing job,’ as a result of the majority of what you are coping with are ladies and youngsters. So, I requested [creator] Dick Wolf if I might have 4 youngsters as an alternative of three. I gave Elliot what I had in-built my head. The primary a part of which was a girlfriend who received knocked up, so I needed to marry her to make it reliable as a result of I am Catholic and I liked her,” he says. “Then the final two children weren’t deliberate, and so they’re twins! I discovered it humorous, however I additionally went, ‘Man, that is… [a lot].’ I stored desirous to dollop on prime of Stabler. He is a man who handles strain.”
Notably, Stabler ended up with 5 youngsters by the point Meloni departed the present in 2011. That, er, wasn’t’ a part of his plan.
“No. No,” Meloni asserts with amusing. “I needed to cease the entire rattling factor at 4.”
Regulation & Order: Organized Crime airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on NBC and might be streamed on Peacock.