Christopher Meloni reacts to his Burger King, McDonalds commercials from back in the day

Christopher Meloni may be a household name now thanks to his role as Detective Elliot Stabler in the "Law & Order" universe, but he was once a struggling young actor who booked Burger King and McDonalds commercials to pay the bills.

During a recent visit to “Late Night,” host Seth Meyers played snippets from two commercials for Meloni, who shared a hilarious behind-the-scenes story about getting a manicure to please one of the producers.

The Burger King commercial featured a young Meloni eating a "Yumbo" ham and cheese sandwich.

In the clip, Meloni takes a bite of his Yumbo, then mugs for the camera while raising an eyebrow.

Afterward, as the audience applauded, Meloni jokingly announced, "That's talent."

Then Meloni told the story of how he horrified a producer with his grubby nails when he arrived at the shoot.

“He goes (making a disgusted look), ‘Your hands and your cuticles,’ like with this face. He goes, ‘Get a manicure.’ I go, ‘OK,’” recalled the star.

The actor visited a nail salon early the next morning. “I’d never had a manicure. They do my nails. And the lady says, ‘Do you want polish?’” he said.

“And we’re in New York,” continued Meloni, now affecting an exaggerated New York accent. “I’d never had a manicure. And you see a lot of them guys, you know, with the shiny ... You know they look nice.”

“Tough guys, nice fingers,” interjected Meyers.

“So I got a polish,” said Meloni.

That turned out to be a bad idea.

“The producer hit the roof,” recalled Meloni, laughing. “He went nuts on me. He was yelling at me.”

Next, Meyers aired a snippet from one of Meloni’s old McDonalds commercials. The clip showed Meloni as an overly confident man who asks a woman out on a date — but warns he will eat only at McDonalds.

“Therefore, if you want to go out with me, we will not be going to any restaurant which refers to itself as a a bistro, a casa, a maison. We will be going to McDonalds,” Meloni's character tells the woman, who looks perturbed.

When the clip ended, Meloni looked puzzled, then joked. “Laying down the law. Women like strong men.”

As for Meyers, the commercial reminded him of a Lifetime crime movie “where a woman is for the first time realizing, ‘Oh, this guy is a full lunatic.”

When Meloni stopped by TODAY earlier this month, he got grilled by co-anchors Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, who wanted to know if Stabler and Capt. Olivia Benson would really kiss on the Jan, 26 episode of "Law & Order: SVU."

Fans have been clamoring for the moment for years, but the frenzy escalated after a promo for the episode showed Benson cradling Stabler's face in her hands.

By now, viewers know that the pair didn't end up smooching in the episode. But Meloni said he understood why fans want to see the two characters go from friends to something more. He also gave some hope that a romance might one day happen.

“I think the end game is they want us together,” he said. “I think there’s a world (where they are together) ... I think we’re all trying to still figure out what the exact steps are and what that end game is, (and) are they going to be together.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com