In 1999, Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni stepped into their roles as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler, playing partners on screen and ultimately becoming pals off.
Now, over two decades later, the pair continue to be friends (Hargitay is godmother to Meloni's daughter) and even reunited for a crossover event between Law & Order: SVU and its Stabler-centric spinoff, Law & Order: Organized Crime.
In the criminal justice system, it should be illegal how much fun these two have on set (captured here in a shot from set shared by Hargitay).
The pair described their initial screen test to PEOPLE, recounting how they walked into the audition room while Meloni was in the middle of telling Hargitay a story, and were so engaged they asked executives to give them a moment to finish the story before they began auditioning.
From there, Hargitay says it was "effortless, easy, fun." (And yes, you're correct: This photo is from the 2000 premiere of Coyote Ugly, a film we also saw in theaters with our BFF.)
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