10 Early Film Roles For Famous Actors You Totally Forgot

Mariska Hargitay has all-but taken over the Law and Order franchise. Its only incarnation still airing, Special Victims Unit, stars her, she has an executive producer credit and even directed an episode. Brainchild Dick Wolf seems content to travel to the Midwest, taking over Chicago department by department.

But Jayne Mansfield's daughter sees no sign of stopping until NBC runs out of "ripped from the headlines" stories to drastically alter, and the show has a built-in "what your parents are watching while you're eating Tide Pods" audience.

Hargitay started young, popping up in a myriad of short-lived TV shows and the odd bit-part in a major release since 1986. But none of them really gained much traction.

In 1999, the same year Detective Olivia Benson first stepped in front of a camera, the prolific-to-a-fault David E. Kelley decided on what critic Gene Siskel described as "a lunch break" to try his hand at the horror genre. The resulting film, Lake Placid, is a toothless horror-comedy. It's so in how meta it is that Kelley's supposed sharp-tongued wit is grating. This is a movie that's proud of itself for getting Betty White to say dirty words. The VOD sequels are somehow more tolerable.

Hargitay was spared embarrassment, only appearing in an early scene in which we learn she's been sleeping with heroine Bridget Fonda's boyfriend.