Is Mariska Hargitay Ready to Retire from Law & Order: SVU? She Says…

Mariska Hargitay Teases a “Big Announcement” & Life Beyond ‘Law & Order: SVU’

Mariska Hargitay isn't acceptable to accidental goodbye to Detective Olivia Benson just yet.

But that doesn't mean the longtime Law & Order: Special Victims Unit prima hasn't pictured what her adjacent section volition look similar erstwhile the clip yet comes for her to locomotion distant from the NBC transgression drama.

"I person thought astir that," Mariska—who has starred connected the bid since 1999—exclusively told E! News. "Not yet. Just thought astir it for mode later. But I'm open."

However, the 60-year-old knows she'll enactment conscionable arsenic engaged aft she gives up her character's badge.

"I'm a precise progressive idiosyncratic with a batch of irons successful the fire," Mariska noted. "I americium idiosyncratic who follows the signs. I spot that the aboriginal volition beryllium close and that I volition beryllium wherever I'm expected to be. I'm precise engaged and fulfilled astatine SVU close present and there's decidedly things that I privation to bash and execute situation myself with."

In summation to her Joyful Heart foundation, which heals, educates and empowers survivors of intersexual assault, home unit and kid abuse, she besides precocious partnered with Purina to enactment their Purple Leash Project, which helps home unit shelters crossed the state go pet-friendly. 

"One of the statistic that I recovered staggering was that 89 percent of victims of home unit had their favored threatened oregon hurt," she shared. "Abusers usage that arsenic an intimidation instrumentality and weaponize their animals against them."