Mariska Hargitay reveals why Kate Moss turned down a speaking role on Law & Order: SVU

• Mariska Hargitay revealed why Kate Moss turned down a role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
• The NBC star said on Jimmy Kimmel Live that several “superstars” have asked to be dead bodies on her long-running series.
• “I mean, it is iconic,” Hargitay quipped.

Dying on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is definitely iconic. Just ask Mariska Hargitay.

The actress revealed during Jimmy Kimmel Live that Hollywood “superstars” are pitching her “nonstop” for the chance to be a dead body on the long-running NBC show. “It’s kind of amazing,” Hargitay said during her Sept. 9 appearance, adding she doesn’t turn everyone down. “It depends” on who it is that asks, she added.

“I’m always so flattered,” Hargitay continued. “It’s a thing that people want to play dead bodies on the show.”

Hargitay previously hinted at one A-list “supermodel” turning down a role on SVU because it wasn’t a dead body. During Wednesday’s appearance on Kimmel, the NBC star identified Kate Moss as the model in question.

“She started letting me know that she wanted to be on the show. So, I went to the producers and I told them about it, and we wrote her a part of a madam,” Hargitay recalled. “Then she says, ‘No, no, no. I don’t want any lines. I just want to be a dead body.’ And I went, ‘Oh, it’s like that.’ That’s what it’s like.”

She added, “People don’t, sometimes, want to be a part. They just want to be an iconic dead body. I mean, it is iconic.”

Hargitay has starred on SVU as Olivia Benson for 27 seasons, with the show’s 28th premiering Oct. 8. The Emmy Award winner reflected on taking the role during a recent Variety interview, revealing that she nearly walked away at one point.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to leave the show too. I don’t want people to think I’m a one-trick pony,’” Hargitay said, recalling a past conversation she had with Julianna Margulies. “She goes, ‘Sweetheart, that ship’s sailed.’”

Hargitay, who has also directed nine episodes of SVU, added, “I wasn’t ready to leave, because I loved it. And then I got to do all this other stuff, and that’s why I don’t think about leaving right now.”

Hargitay noted that SVU creator and executive producer Dick Wolf has a 30-season goal.

“Do I want to quit now? No. Why? I made a movie while shooting,” she said, referring to the Emmy-winning documentary, My Mom Jayne, about her late mother, Jayne Mansfield. “I did a play for six weeks on hiatus. I’m hosting the Emmys.”

Hargitay, who made her Broadway debut this year in Every Brilliant Thing, continued, “Next summer, if I don’t make another movie, I’ll probably do another play. And I love it! After I made my film, it was unleashed. Something got unleashed, or broken open, or freed.”