00:00 I don't remember anything.
00:01 Do you know how many lines I've had to learn?
00:03 I gotta start watching the old episodes.
00:05 I really do.
00:06 It goes into my heart, goes into my soul,
00:09 and then I go, "Bye-bye!"
00:11 [upbeat music]
00:14 Oh, geez.
00:18 I don't even have to.
00:19 Look at this, I just saw one line.
00:20 Yes, I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with pickle.
00:25 Well, to be honest with you, this was the episode.
00:28 Can't remember what season it was.
00:30 And this was the episode where I was on,
00:32 I think maybe Mushrooms,
00:33 and I thought we had jumped the shark.
00:36 What?
00:37 I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with the pickle.
00:40 Was it my favorite line?
00:41 Somebody slipped me Mushrooms,
00:45 and I had to do an interrogation scene,
00:48 and it was, you know, I had to deliver this line
00:53 as serious as I could, and I remember feeling,
00:56 "I earned my money that day.
00:58 "Let's just leave it at that."
01:00 Only a certain kind of people bring up that line to me,
01:03 and mostly my co-star, Chris Maloney,
01:06 who likes to go down memory lane with it.
01:08 [laughs]
01:12 You think I'm a bitch, don't you?
01:16 You're not the first.
01:18 You know, this was such a great line.
01:21 Who thinks she's a bitch?
01:23 I don't know, I don't care.
01:24 I don't remember anything.
01:26 Do you know how many lines I've had to deliver?
01:28 It goes in, it goes in, it goes into my heart,
01:30 goes into my soul, and then I go, "Bye-bye!"
01:33 You think I'm a bitch, don't you?
01:36 You're not the first.
01:40 That's such an empowering moment for women, right?
01:43 Because we're not allowed,
01:45 we haven't been allowed to have our anger.
01:48 We haven't been allowed to have our opinion.
01:50 We have to be nice and bring everyone together,
01:53 and don't ruffle things up,
01:55 and just make it nice, keep it nice.
01:56 I think that's one of the hardest lessons for women,
02:00 to go, "Yeah, guess what?
02:02 "Here's my opinion, and you may not like it,
02:04 "and that's okay."
02:05 I think no is one of the hardest things that women learn.
02:09 It was very nice to finally get comfortable
02:13 with people not liking you,
02:15 people not liking what you say,
02:18 people being uncomfortable with your answer,
02:21 and it literally felt like I got a piece of myself back.
02:26 On and off the screen.
02:28 Sweetheart, set a boundary, people will abide by them.
02:32 Now I'm doing my faces.
02:34 (laughs)
02:36 Where are these dinosaurs gonna,
02:39 when are these dinosaurs gonna die out?
02:41 Oh, okay, so we're talking about the old guard.
02:46 I'm not talking about Peter Gallagher or Terry.
02:50 Don't remember what year, what season.
02:52 Sad, isn't it?
02:53 When are these dinosaurs gonna die out?
02:56 Obviously, I often find myself in a male-dominated society,
03:01 and I've had to sort of beat to my own drum,
03:06 and go up against a lot of oppressive forces,
03:10 and people who did things in an old way.
03:13 When I got the role of Olivia Benson,
03:15 obviously I started going on ride-alongs with cops,
03:18 and hanging out at police precincts,
03:20 just to understand the machinations of what went on there.
03:24 But I also became a rape crisis counselor,
03:28 and I went through a 40-hour training,
03:30 and I met all these badass SVU detectives
03:35 that were females, that were so strong,
03:40 and so compassionate, and so empathetic,
03:44 and didn't take any shit from anyone.
03:47 I think every single person should go through this training.
03:51 Every single human being on this planet
03:54 should learn how to listen, and that was my takeaway.
03:57 This is a very resonant, and meaningful,
04:03 and important, and empowering line.
04:06 Once you tell your story, it can be empowering,
04:09 and the floodgates open.
04:11 I don't know what year this is from,
04:16 but I think that this is a very true statement,
04:21 and I think part of Olivia Benson's motto.
04:24 Once you tell your story, it can be empowering,
04:26 the floodgates open.
04:27 Once I started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004,
04:31 obviously I was getting a lot of hesitation, rejection,
04:34 and people didn't wanna touch it.
04:36 They didn't want to go near sexual assault,
04:39 because it was yucky, and not pretty,
04:41 and if it wasn't a disease per se,
04:43 they were not interested in it.
04:45 Certainly to get corporate funding.
04:48 The writers of the show also started working
04:50 with our foundation, and meeting all the experts
04:52 in the field.
04:54 It's when the real synergy sort of came in,
04:57 and the messaging became very aligned.
05:01 And so I think that was that year.
05:03 Storytelling is one of the most healing modalities,
05:07 and having somebody bear witness to your story
05:10 is one of the most healing things
05:11 that can happen to a person.
05:13 (pages rustling)
05:16 Well I take it that this line was said with irony.
05:22 Don't you just hate to see a grown man cry?
05:25 I have no idea.
05:28 It's so funny.
05:29 I gotta start watching the old episodes.
05:31 I really do.
05:32 I think I'm gonna have our show runner
05:34 write all these lines back in,
05:36 so I can re-say them and see how I'd say them now.
05:39 Don't you just hate to see a grown man cry?
05:41 You know, I actually watch old episodes sometimes,
05:44 and I sit there and I go,
05:45 nothing.
05:48 I can't remember.
05:49 But I think that also when I was younger doing the show too,
05:53 I was managing so much.
05:55 It was a lot to go from, you know, moving to New York,
05:58 and playing this new character,
05:59 and there was a lot of stress at the time,
06:02 and stuff that I was learning,
06:02 that I think I was stressed out a bit,
06:05 so I couldn't fully be present,
06:07 which is shame and hard.
06:10 I have so many memories in this town,
06:12 and I can't drive anywhere without going,
06:14 oh, I shot that, I shot a scene there,
06:16 or I remember that there.
06:17 So I have such a beautiful and intimate relationship
06:19 with New York City,
06:20 that I feel so blessed to have,
06:23 'cause it's such a magical city,
06:25 and we've always sort of looked at the city
06:28 as, you know, the sixth or seventh character on the show.
06:32 Ah, yes, it's detective, not miss.
06:34 Save your lawyering for somebody who gives a damn.
06:37 Yeah, again, one of these lines,
06:39 which was exciting to start to change the conversation
06:44 around how people were treated,
06:46 and equality, which was so important to me.
06:49 It's detective, not miss,
06:51 and we're not in court, counselor.
06:52 We're in my house, why don't you save your lawyering
06:54 for somebody who gives a damn?
06:56 These archaic patterns of disrespect,
07:01 and condescension, that run rampant,
07:06 were just not acceptable for me.
07:08 Sometimes, like even now, people will go to me
07:11 that I don't know, or a man, or an older man will go,
07:13 listen, sweetie, or honey, or baby, or something,
07:17 and I'll say, because it's intention that matters to me.
07:21 If they're being disrespectful,
07:22 that's one thing, and I'll shut it down.
07:23 However, if they're saying it 'cause they don't know,
07:28 I will say, you know,
07:29 I know that you meant that in such a kind way,
07:31 but women don't really like that.
07:32 Women don't really like that,
07:33 unless it's coming from a loved one,
07:36 or somebody that they have an intimate relationship,
07:39 and I've mostly been met with, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
07:43 So I like to give people the benefit of the doubt,
07:47 and innocent until proven guilty,
07:50 but once they've shown me who they are,
07:53 or they're intentionally disrespectful,
07:55 then I shut it down pretty fast.
07:57 Such an important and beautiful line,
08:01 and one of my favorite lines that I say over and over
08:03 to people on camera and off, is you survived the abuse,
08:08 and you're going to survive the recovery, and that is true.
08:12 But you survived the abuse, Gia.
08:14 You're gonna survive the recovery.
08:19 There's so much fear, you know,
08:21 about going into the pain of this kind of trauma,
08:26 and people wanna get away from it, understandably,
08:31 but we know now that the only way out is through,
08:34 and so that's one of the most important messages
08:38 we can give anyone in terms of healing.
08:40 There have been so many episodes that have made me
08:44 so incredibly emotional, or stories that were just so rough
08:49 to metabolize, and that's why I started the foundation,
08:53 because when I found out about the statistics
08:57 of sexual assault, that it was one in four women,
09:00 by a certain age, one in three women,
09:02 and one in six men, I couldn't tell these stories
09:08 without doing something about it,
09:12 that I needed to do something that I thought,
09:14 why isn't everyone dealing with this?
09:18 Why are we sweeping these issues under the carpet?
09:20 Why are we not, you know, screaming it out
09:23 from the rooftops, because this kind of depravity
09:27 lies in darkness, so we should be shining
09:30 a big fat light on it, and I think the show did,
09:33 in so many ways, and something that was,
09:36 all of a sudden, on television,
09:39 became sort of water cooler talk, and that opened up,
09:43 and this is the thing about sexual assault,
09:45 that it thrives in isolation and shame,
09:49 and the fact that it brought so many people together,
09:54 and communities together, and dissolved,
09:58 and dissipated so much shame,
10:01 because people found community,
10:03 and that is the gift, the beauty, the power,
10:07 the healing power that the show has had.
10:10 That's something that we all need a reminder about,
10:13 and I'm happy to be that person.
10:15 [upbeat music]
10:18 [upbeat music]
10:20 (upbeat music)
10:23 (upbeat music)
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