Mariska Hargitay charmed us at the 2026 Emmys

Mariska Hargitay won two Emmys last week for My Mom Jayne, the documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, at the Creative Arts Emmys. Last night she hosted the Primetime Emmys on NBC, the network that’s been airing her show, Law & Order: SVU, for 27-soon-to-be-28 seasons.

Did every joke land? No. Could you say it was cringy at times? Yes. Did Mariska Hargitay come out of the experienced tarnished in some way? F-ck no. Because while the punchlines were flat here and there, her sincerity, her enthusiasm, her sweetness never wavered. It was impossible not to be charmed by how earnest she was… even though she also spent the night consistently reminding the audience – which included her peers – that she is a winner herself (with the Emmys), that she is steadily employed (she doesn’t know what a “series finale” is, and that she is extremely wealthy.

This, I think, is an underrated skill, and especially for a woman. For the people out there who spent the night complaining about how the opening sketch didn’t work, that the singing and dancing didn’t work, that whatever, whatever there is to bitch about, what they’re missing, to me, is the fine balance of being so irresistibly appealing you couldn’t help but root for her every second she was on stage even as she was dropping bars about being the longest-running lead actress on television with a per-episode and residuals deal that they basically don’t offer anyone anymore on a network show that easily doubles the episode count of most series on streaming per season – and still has the f-cking energy to be on Broadway during hiatus, at every Knicks game she can, and host the goddamn Emmys probably as a favour to the company writing her cheques.

Plus the clout to call in assists from the NBA Finals MVP and a pop superstar, we’ll get to her later. The point here is this: Mariska Hargitay didn’t need to do this. But doing it also wasn’t a risk for her. It could never be a risk when it was a choice she made because she thought it might be fun… and it was. That’s the win. And it’s especially important now, when the ostensible arbiters of “cool” were raised with a phone in one hand afraid and armed against someone else with a phone in their hand trying to out-nonchalant each other instead of actually trying anything, period.

Meanwhile, here’s a 62-year-old woman having the time of her life doing a little ditty with Andrew Rannells, the purest theatre kid if there ever was one who has spent his own life busting through all the walls of cringe anxiety with two hands that have never stopped jazzing.

But then again, Mariska Hargitay has always shown us that she’s never cared about what the so-called cool kids were doing. There were layers to that AMC moment with Nicole Kidman during the opening monologue last night. It was one of the strongest bits, sure, and certainly worked as a straight parody, but also, no one is more qualified than Mariska to tell the movie people, who’ve always been positioned higher on the fame hierarchy ladder than television people, that this was TV’s night, and that as the reigning queen of linear television, her career is no less iconic for being known for one show and one character.

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Also…

Mariska Hargitay did what so many hosts couldn’t before her: she brought the show in on time! In fact, it was actually light – so light that Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey had to stretch. And she managed it through ten different looks and just as many hair changes. Seriously, we probably should have talked more about this on the Substack live hub: that one minute her hair was just below her chin, then down her back after the commercial break, then at her shoulders a few minutes later. So I guess that’s another thing to take away from this triumph: Mariska Hargitay’s team is just as efficient as she is.