In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Police Procedural
Episode(s): 1 episode, 13.18 “Valentine’s Day”
Role: Christine Hartwell (guest)
Status: Aired April 18, 2012 (U.S.)
Series Creator(s): Dick Wolf
Cast: Mariska Hargitay, Danny Pino, Ice-T, Kelli Giddish, Dann Florek, Diane Neal (guest), Ron Rifkin (guest), Shawn Hatosy (guest), Rich Sommer (guest)
Network: NBC
• Overview
• Memorable Christine Quotations
• Said of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Episode Trivia
• Critical Reception
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Online
|
Spoiler Warning: Please be advised that this page is meant to be a comprehensive overview of a TV show, episode or episodes, and is likely to contain spoilers. If you’d like to remain spoiler-free as to what happens on the show or in the episode(s) detailed here, we suggest you not read any further. |
More SVU images of Chloë in our Law & Order: SVU Photo Gallery
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is a long-running police procedural set in New York about a team of police investigators lead by Detective Olivia Benson (Hargitay) specializing in sex crimes.
In episode “Valentine’s Day”, Christine Hartwell (Chloë Sevigny) is brutally raped and kidnapped from her New York home while her husband watches live via video chat. The police soon capture Christine when she is sent by her assailants to pick up the ransom money, but when the SVU team questions her, her unusual behavior and the holes in her story quickly get the detectives suspicious. As the evidence mounts up against her it soon becomes clear that there’s much more to both Christine and her story than she is telling, and she’s eventually charged with coercion, obstruction of justice and filing a false report. But even as the evidence against Christine begins to look overwhelming the case is anything but open-and-shut when not only does Christine’s blindly devoted husband (Rich Sommer) get her a top defense attorney, Christine secretly manages to befriend one of the jurors.
Chloë Sevigny guest stars in the episode as Christine Hartwell.
“Because I’m fortunate to have a wonderful family, a comfortable home, some people see me as… privileged. They think that I’m self-centered, that I take things for granted, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. What you see on that tape is me fighting for my life, and the only thing going through my mind was will I ever see my family again. I did whatever I had to do to survive!”
Select quotations regarding the show from Chloë Sevigny and her co-workers:
On why she wanted to do the show and how she got involved:
“Every time I go to the theater, every Playbill I see, every actor has an SVU credit and I wanted one. So that’s kind of how it happened. My friend Natasha [Lyonne] did an episode and we were talking about it while she was there and I said, ‘I kind of want to do one. Why don’t you say something to the producers and see if they’d be interested in having me do an episode?’ So she did and I had my manager call and say, ‘Chloe really wants to do an episode’ and they said, ‘We’ll see what we have in the pipeline.’ And they came back with this, so that’s how it happened.”
- The Huffington Post interview, April 2012
On how she prepared for the role of Christine:
“It was kind of loosely based on this true story that happened in Florida — so they sent me some of that, some of the press clippings about that. But no, no real research.”
- The Huffington Post interview, April 2012
On working with Mariska Hargitay:
“She’s been on that show for so many years and she handles herself so gracefully on it. She’s just, she’s cool to be around. She’s funny, easy and she had good insight into some of the more difficult moments I had. I love an alpha female and she is like the ultimate.”
- The Huffington Post interview, April 2012
On working with Ron Rifkin, Rich Sommer and Diane Neal:
“Ron Rifkin, Rich Sommer from “Mad Men,” who I totally fanned out on and adore to no end. And Diane Neal, but I guess she’s more of a regular. She was the laugh-riot of the set. I could barely contain myself.”
- The Huffington Post interview, April 2012
On having maybe been miscast as a manipulative vixen:
“I thought maybe I was miscast. I don’t really see myself as that. Maybe my hair wasn’t the right color. But it was great — I love shooting in New York.”
- TVGuide.com interview, July 2012
• “Valentine’s Day” was filmed in New York City over the course of a week in February 2012.
• Chloë Sevigny received “Special Guest Star” billing in the episode alongside regular guest star Diane Neal.
• Describing how she landed the role of Christine, Chloë told the NBC behind-the-scenes crew: “I actually called my agent and said, ‘I really wanna do an episode of SVU,’ coz my best friend Natasha Lyonne had done one and she’d just talked about it and how much fun it was. It just seemed like such a rite of passage for New York actors, like, everybody always does SVU, [...] most working actors do SVU or a Law & Order. So I called and said, ‘I really wanna do something, do you think I’d be right for anything,’ and they came back with this episode… Well, first they said, ‘Would you rather play a victim or a perp?’ and I was like, ‘Perp!’ And they came back with this and I was like, well, she’s not really a perp coz she’s playing the victim, but it’s so much more complicated coz she’s kind of both and I get to play both. So it just seemed like a fun exercise, I’m here in New York, I love New York City, I love shooting here. We were out on the streets the other day and it was just so much fun, I love the crew. The crews are so much more diverse here, and the cast, than lots of other places that I’ve shot [in]. It just feels so good to be here and shooting here and supporting the industry here.”
• “Valentine’s Day” marked Chloë’s second ever guest appearance on a fictional TV show since her one-off appearance on Will & Grace in 2004.
Episode review data coming soon/not available.
Awards & Nominations
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode 13.18 has not received any awards or nominations.
Personal Thoughts
Coming soon/not available.
Below are some Law & Order: Special Victims Unit-related links that may be of interest to you.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit official site
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit TFL-approved fanlisting
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit TFL-approved Christine character fanlisting
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on IMDb.com
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on MetaCritic.com
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on Wikipedia.org
• Kelli Giddish on Kelli Giddish Online
• Mariska Hargitay on Mariska Hargitay Online
