These Are Their Stories: ‘Law & Order: SVU’s Main Players & Their Service Records
Over 25 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the valiant detectives and sharp assistant district attorneys have clocked a lot of hours on the beat and in the courtroom.
With her her big heart and unfailing fight for justice, Mariska Hargitay‘s Olivia Benson is who victims want on their case—and perps regret coming up against. “Benson is heroic,” Hargitay tells us, “somebody who fought for women and elevated women’s voices.”
One of the star’s favorite episodes is from the William Lewis (Pablo Schreiber) arc in Season 15. “Pablo Schreiber played a psychotic killer who twice kidnapped and tortured [Benson],” she says. “We definitely went into uncharted territory there. The goal is to surprise yourself and truly be in a moment. I felt like we achieved that.”
Below, we track most of the main characters, recurring faces, and guest spots of SVU. These are their stories (dun dun).
TV Guide Magazine
This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s Law & Order: SVU 25th Anniversary issue. For more inside scoop on the long-running NBC franchise, pick up a copy of the issue available on newsstands and for order online at LawAndOrderMagazine.com.
Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay)
There is no Law & Order: SVU without Mariska Hargitay or Olivia Benson.
“I read the script, and I knew in my gut that I had to do this role,” the star, executive producer and director has said. When she thought another actress had been called back at the same time, she recalled, “I walked in and I go, ‘I’m pretty sure this has got my name written all over it. This is my part.’”
We’re glad she did! Twenty-five seasons later, Hargitay is the sole original cast member left and the longest-running actor on a live-action primetime series, while Benson is the longest-running character on a live-action primetime TV drama.
We’ve watched her trajectory since the very first episode, with Benson going from young detective to seasoned sergeant, established lieutenant and now veteran captain. She’s become an impressive leader along the way. “I think I lead with love and with a maternal nature. I’m tough but fair and protective,” Hargitay has said of Benson.
As tends to be the case in many procedurals, she has a tragic backstory, but rather than constantly threatening to bring her down, Olivia’s rich history informs who she is and why she’s so good at what she does. She was the product of rape; her mother, Serena (Elizabeth Ashley), was abusive; and during the series, Benson learned she had a half brother, Simon (Michael Weston), who later died from an overdose (spiked with fentanyl to kill him).
Benson has been through hell on the job as well, finding herself on the other side of an investigation several times. Among the worst are the four days during the Season 14 cliffhanger finale “Her Negotiation,” followed by the Season 15 opener “Surrender Benson,” when she was held captive by serial rapist and killer William Lewis (Pablo Schreiber). Olivia is forced to relive the trauma during his subsequent trial, and the emotional effects of her ordeal follow her still.
Four years later, in the 2018 episode “Gone Baby Gone,” Olivia is again terrorized when her son, Noah, goes missing—kidnapped by his biological grandmother, Sheila Porter (Brooke Shields). (He, like Benson, is a product of rape, and Benson adopted him after encountering his parents, both now dead, during a case.)
Through it all, Benson remains the beating heart of the unit and often gets emotionally involved in cases—just look at how strongly she was affected in the Season 25 opener when she failed to locate a missing girl. Benson saw the girl in a van and had a hunch something was wrong, but didn’t yet know the girl had been kidnapped, so she did nothing. Four episodes into the new season, Benson was in therapy trying to cope with her guilt over the incident.
She’s any criminal’s worst nightmare (you don’t want to face her in an interrogation room) and the investigator that survivors want on these cases because she will fight for them. Hargitay won an Emmy in 2006 for Benson doing just that in Season 7’s “911,” in which she’s convinced that a 9-year-old girl with whom she stays on the phone is a victim of child pornography.
For Hargitay, Benson is “heroic and something that our culture needed, somebody who fought for women and who elevated women’s voices and who bears witness to such pain. There is great healing in that.” She does the same off the set, having created the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 with the mission to change how society responds to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse; to support survivors’ healing; and to end the violence for good. It’s only recently that Hargitay opened up for the first time about her own sexual assault when she was in her thirties, by a man she considered a friend, and how her work with her foundation showed her what healing looks like. “I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside,” Hargitay wrote in a piece for People.
Off the clock, Benson’s life is a work-in-progress, with none of her relationships sticking, whether with Dean Winters’ Det. Brian Cassidy, Harry Connick Jr.’s ADA David Haden or Robert John Burke’s Internal Affairs Capt. Ed Tucker.
But there may yet be hope for Olivia finding enduring love. She wears a compass necklace given to her by her former partner Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), who reentered her life in 2021 after a 10-year absence. Has their will-they-or-won’t-they connection been what has prevented Olivia from making a lasting connection with anyone else?
The pair almost shared a kiss in Season 24 (Olivia said, “I’m not ready”), and she never removes the compass necklace, prompting her new therapist to remark, “What are you hoping to navigate?” Benson didn’t respond. But in a past episode, she’s said, “I trust my instincts. If I don’t have that, I shouldn’t be here.” We trust them too. —Meredith Jacobs
Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni)
Any police chief tasked with taking down vicious rapists, pedophiles and other sex-based criminals would be lucky to have Det. Elliot Stabler on their squad. While a member of the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit until his 2011 departure, he had a 97% case closure rate. But he’s also a cop so passionate in his quest for justice that he crossed the line many times, using his fists on suspects way too often, not to mention shooting a few. (It didn’t help that he was raised by an abusive father who was a corrupt cop.)
But luckily Stabler had compassionate Det. Olivia Benson at his side to help cool his anger and encourage his better angels. Partners for over a dozen years, they were extraordinarily loyal to one another—until he left the SVU after a traumatic shooting, without telling his dear friend.
Nine years later, Stabler returned to New York—Meloni stars in the spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime—and soon was being comforted by Benson after the murder of his wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies). Though they no longer work together regularly, long-suppressed feelings have reawakened, with declarations of love that have yet to be definitively defined. —Ileane Rudolph
Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T)
Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T) has been solving crimes and telling perps to “shut up” for over 400 episodes. The no-nonsense second-in-command got his start in Narcotics before transferring to the SVU, taking over for Michelle Hurd’s Det. Monique Jeffries in Season 2.
The irreplaceable Fin is an overall good cop who isn’t afraid to speak up—whether it’s to perps or even his colleagues. Who could forget when he told a wealthy woman going down for involuntary servitude in Season 5, “In case you hadn’t heard, Lincoln freed the slaves”? And he always gives it straight to his longtime pal Olivia Benson… even if she’s technically his superior. As a solid presence on the team, not much shakes Fin up: He supported his then-partner Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) when she got shot, and when his estranged son Ken (Ernest Waddell) was at the center of an investigation, he kept his head in the game and helped crack the case.
Recently, Fin’s personal life has been on the upswing, especially since he’s found lasting love with tough-as-nails Sgt. Phoebe Baker (Jennifer Esposito). —Emily Aslanian
Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish)
A transplant from the Atlanta PD who tried to leave her troubled relatives and a gambling habit behind in the Deep South (with mixed results), Det. Amanda Rollins’ eagerness to make an impression at the SVU initially led to some friction with her new work cohort, but she soon grew into a dependable colleague—and a close friend of Olivia Benson.
Though first seen as a kind of little sister on the squad, Amanda had a number of grown-up romances, including a (mostly) offscreen relationship with fellow detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), a dalliance with Lt. Declan Murphy (Donal Logue) that resulted in the birth of her first child and an on-off relationship with Dr. Al Pollack (George Newbern), with whom she had her second child.
By the time she left the SVU team for an adjunct professor post at Fordham University in December 2022, her personal life was more settled. She had a devoted new husband—ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi (Peter Scanavino)—and in the Season 25 premiere, the whole squad gathered at a church to attend the baptism of Rollins and Carisi’s first child together, son Nicky. —Ethan Alter
Nick Amaro (Danny Pino)
Det. Nick Amaro had big shoes to fill with Olivia Benson—not to mention with SVU fans—when he replaced her longtime colleague Elliot Stabler at the top of Season 13. Coming in from Narcotics (much like Tutuola), Amaro “initially had some resistance to work with a team within that structure,” Pino has said of his character, describing him as “a renegade,” but one who wanted to do things well.
To his credit, Amaro was never a simple Stabler clone, something that Olivia came to value over the course of their four-season partnership. Growing up with an abusive father (Armand Assante), the Cuban Italian detective—who was married with a young daughter when he joined SVU—was deeply invested in cases where women and children were victimized. His marriage didn’t survive the stresses of his job, though, and after he and his wife (Laura Benanti) split, he had a hinted-at affair with Detective Rollins and also discovered he had a son with a former girlfriend.
But Amaro’s life and career really suffered blows after he assaulted a pedophile while off duty. He was charged and put on leave, and even though the charges were eventually dropped andhe was brought back to the team, his misconduct prevented him from being promoted, ultimately costing him his future with the NYPD. Fortunately, a fresh start awaited him on the West Coast. —Emily Aslanian
William Dodds (Peter Gallagher)
As the new deputy chief of SVU divisions citywide, Dodds (Peter Gallagher) did not make a good first impression on the squad when he took charge in Season 16. He toughly derided the detectives for not making better progress in finding a crime-spree perp and was particularly hard on Benson, who was struggling to balance motherhood and career.
His relationship with the team was often rocky, though he did sometimes show a softer side, and he slowly began to respect Benson over his 2014–19 run, even urging her to choose a command of her own when she passed the lieutenant’s exam. Dodds leaned on Benson in 2016’s memorable “Heartfelt Passages” when his son, Sgt. Mike Dodds (Andy Karl), was shot in a hostage crisis and later died.
After a complicated case left higher-ups unhappy, Dodds was transferred to a less prestigious position. As a condition of agreeing to the move, he got Benson promoted to captain. —Kate Hahn
Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
When you’re a cop on the clock, count yourself fortunate if you have a Donald Cragen in your corner. As played by Dann Florek, Cragen was a fixture of the Law & Order universe going back to the mother-ship’s 1988 pilot. The Green Beret turned NYPD captain conquered a nearly career-ending alcohol addiction to become the sober rock that Olivia Benson and the SVU crew leaned on for 15 seasons.
Though he was briefly forced to surrender control a couple of times—including at the start of Season 9 for a failure to adequately supervise his team, leaving Richard Belzer’s Sergeant Munch in charge, and again in Season 11—he always supported his detectives with a balance of strength and warmth.
On his way out the door in 2014—and onto a cruise ship for a well-deserved six-month getaway—Cragen turned the squad room keys over to Olivia for an interim promotion that eventually became permanent.
Cragen’s longevity even surprised his alter ego. “When I started SVU, a lot of people said, ‘Is there room for two Law & Orders?’” the 74-year-old Florek reminisced at a 25th anniversary event in New York. “I said, ‘I hope we can make five [years].’ Then I made 15 [years]!”
To this day, Cragen is still onlya video call away for Olivia on important occasions…like SVU’s 500th episode in 2021, in which they finally talked captain to captain. —Emily Aslanian
John Munch (Richard Belzer)
From 1993 to 2016, Det. John Munch was ubiquitous on TV. The wry, much-married, conspiracy-loving detective with a heart, played by the late stand-up comedian and actor Richard Belzer, showed up in 10 separate shows on five different networks in all his sardonic, black-clad glory. Munch, a character created for another NBC police drama, Homicide: Life on the Street, seemed to fit in everywhere.
When Homicide ended in May 1999, Belzer pitched Dick Wolf about reviving his role on Law & Order. Instead, Wolf wound up putting him on the new SVU spinoff, which premiered that September. Munch, who was promoted to sergeant in 2007, appeared in over 300 episodes, closing cases and cracking wise—even when shot in the butt—before announcing in 2013 that he was leaving to work as an investigator for the DA and then, ultimately, that he was retiring.
After he left SVU, the much-missed character, and actor, returned for two episodes. His final one displayed Munch’s oft-hidden sentimentality as well as his irrepressible wit when his dear friend Olivia Benson let him babysit her toddler Noah. In true Munch style, he couldn’t resist teasing that he made sure to teach the boy “a major life lesson—always question authority.” —Ileane Rudolph
Casey Novak (Diane Neal)
Taking over from the outgoing Alexandra Cabot in Season 5, Casey Novak served as the resident assistant district attorney for five continuous seasons—a record for a female ADA in the L&O universe that endures to this day. Initially standoffish, the Harvard Law–educated Novak learned to play nicely with others. In her first episode, she accompanied Benson and Stabler to a crime scene to see if she could handle the grueling case matter and wound up carrying an abused girl to safety, which helped her standing with the team.
Novak was acting on her own, though, when she violated due process during a case involving a corrupt cop. She left her post under threat of censure and possible disbarment, but following a three-year suspension, she returned to the courtroom for a string of appearances in Seasons 12 and 13. —Emily Aslanian
Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
ADA Cabot was driven by a moral code that often complicated her job. The Harvard grad was introduced to the SVU squad in the Season 2 opener as the replacement for Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon, who happened to be March’s classmate at Dallas’ Highland Park High School). Brought in while Detectives Jeffries (Michelle Hurd) and Stabler were under internal review for misconduct by the higher-ups at One Police Plaza (he was exonerated; Jeffries lost her job and was replaced by Tutuola), Cabot worked with the whole SVU team for three seasons.
During her time as a prosecutor, she racked up an impressive success rate while also leaning on judges—one happened to be her uncle!—in order to help the detectives. But Cabot ran into trouble and departed in Season 5’s “Loss” after a drug lord’s threats led her to enter the Witness Protection Program. It was a development that saddened Benson; by that point, she’d become a good friend to the ADA.
Cabot reemerged a year later to testify against the drug lord, then led Dick Wolf’s 2006 series Conviction. She made subsequent returns to SVU until Season 19. In the episode “Sunk Cost Fallacy,” she had retired from law and was using her experience in Witness Protection to help women fake their deaths to escape their abusers. —Damian Holbrook
Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino)
It’s never easy to be the new guy on the team…especially when the guy whose shoes you’re filling had a dramatic exit. Brought into the SVU as a temporary replacement for problem-plagued Det. Nick Amaro (Pino), itwas initially a struggle for Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. to adjust to the demands of the job, a learning curve that frustrated Benson, his boss.
But the Staten Island–raised detective—who chose policing after contemplating joining the priesthood—made a good argument for his presence in the squad room whenever he interrogated a perp. Those skills helped him when he moved over to the DA’s office after passing the bar exam.
Sonny also made a big impression on Amanda Rollins (Giddish). Their friendship turned romantic over the course of seven seasons, culminating in courthouse nuptials in Season 24. The episode marked Rollins’ exit from the SVU, but the Season 25 premiere confirmed that their love story is still going strong—and that Carisi is now the father of a bouncing baby boy. From new guy to new dad—not a bad arc. —Emily Aslanian
Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
ADA Barba takes command of a courtroom the way Broadway actor Raúl Esparza does a stage. Barba made quite the first impression in Season 14’s “Twenty-Five Acts” as he taunted a rapist (played by Roger Bart) into choking Barba with his belt to show the jury how volatile the guy is.
Barba, whose last regular appearance was in Season 19, would take—and win—cases others wouldn’t. He did what he thought he should, but frequently found himself in gray areas (like giving an addict cash in order to testify, knowing she’d buy drugs, then also giving money to her orphaned daughter).
Ultimately, Barba resigned after his involvement in a right-to-die case in which he turned off a baby’s ventilator—a mercy killing that cost him his job. He’s returned for an occasional appearance, having switched sides to become a defense attorney. Though that put him at odds with Benson, Esparza has said their connection is strong enough to survive. “He’s someone who will always love her and is deeply connected to her. He’s also someone who’s just as stubborn as Benson.” —Meredith Jacobs
Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
She’s one of our favorites of the SVUniverse! Introduced as a recurring character in Season 2, the wry medical examiner (eventually promoted to chief ME) has offered clear perspectives on countless murders and has gotten tangled up in some cases. On two occasions, Warner was held hostage, once in her own lab. In the Season 7 episode “Blast,” while visiting a kidnapped girl’s family to deliver news that the missing child has leukemia, she got involved in the case when the kidnapper trapped them all in the house. In the end, Melinda—a Gulf War veteran—shot the perpetrator in the leg to prevent him from committing “suicide by cop.”
Warner has been shot herself but survived, and for 22 years was a valued member of the SVU’s extended team. For one, she was integral in proving a DNA sample that tied Benson to a homicide had been tampered with to make the detective look guilty. (Warner’s portrayer is as dogged as the character: Tunie juggled a gig as attorney Jessica Griffin on As the World Turns for the first seven years she appeared on SVU.) Though her last appearance on SVU was in 2021, we recently learned in Law & Order: Organized Crime that Warner is still on the job from a scene with Meloni’s Stabler in which the former colleagues shared a heartfelt hug. Here’s hoping she’ll return again. —Damian Holbrook
George Huang (BD Wong)
“First do no harm. That is the oath I took as a doctor, and that is what I live by.” That’s Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), the SVU squad’s resident criminal profiler and forensic psychiatrist, telling Benson why he risked losing his medical license to save a teen from an abusive rehab facility in the fan-favorite 2009 episode “Users.” The calm and empathetic psychiatrist always put human kindness first. He debuted in the series’ second season as an FBI agent on loan to SVU, and he offered his expert analysis of crime scenes and suspects from Seasons 3 to 12, later becoming a recurring guest star.
Huang sometimes clashed with the crime-solvers when he diagnosed perps with mental illness—making them harder to prosecute—and particularly butted heads with Stabler in 2003’s “Coerced,” when the hotheaded detective agitated a schizophrenic perp enough to justify drugging him so that he would reveal the location of a missing boy. That didn’t stop Huang from being willing to testify against Stabler, however.
Eventually fences were mended, and the good doctor also helped the team keep their sanity. In Season 6’s “Charisma,” he spoke with each individually after they witnessed horrific cult murders. Huang not only did no harm—he did a lot of good. —Kate Hahn
Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano)
Hailing from Juárez, Mexico, Det. Joe Velasco escaped his past as a teenage gang member and has transformed into a solid detective with a knack for undercover work. “He didn’t usually operate within the limits of the law, because he needed to get the job done,” Pisano has said about Velasco’s ongoing adjustment to the operating procedures of the SVU. “He’s learning that to prosecute an oppressor or a criminal, there has to be certain guidelines.”
And Joe’s still learning those guidelines: In a pivotal Season 24 arc, he revealed his connection to an open murder case from his gang days that put him under suspicion with the team. Clearing his name, and earning Benson’s respect, would require him to turn in the friend who he later admitted committed the murder. But after Olivia reminded him to stop “living a performance” and start living life, Velasco got the evidence they needed and gave it to Benson. He’s started rebuilding trust with his colleagues. —Emily Aslanian
Noah Benson (Ryan Buggle)
From his introduction as an abandoned infant in Season 15 to navigating horrible foster homes and surviving the legal battles of the adoption process, Noah’s journey has been harrowing and heartfelt. Ryan Buggle, who has played Benson’s adopted son since Season 19, enjoys being part of the onscreen family, saying at one point, “Working with her [Mariska Hargitay] is like a dream.” —Alexis Rotnicki
Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane)
A recent addition to the SVU, Det. Terry Bruno was introduced in Season 24 as a “whistleblower cop.” Before we even saw him, Benson and Chief McGrath gossiped about the infamous detective who successfully sued the NYPD for wrongful termination after speaking out against his department’s malpractices— and was awarded $11 million in the settlement.
Benson and Tutuola met Bruno while helping the Bronx SVU close their open cases—they teamed up to track down a serial rapist—and they quickly saw his potential. He officially joined the team a few episodes later. Bruno doesn’t have to work; he wants to. He listens to the victims and tries to do the right thing—and if he also bribes uncooperative lab techs with high-end watches and jet skis, well, that’s just a good use of settlement money. —Alexis Rotnicki
Tommy McGrath (Terry Serpico)
Any fan will tell you: Benson and Chief McGrath do not get along. Ever since he assumed control of the SVU following Christian Garland’s (Demore Barnes) departure in Season 23, the chief and Benson have had strained relations.
The ambitious McGrath cares for politics more than the victims, and his boys’ club attitude leads to heated interactions with the SVU. Still, his abrasiveness makes for some fantastic Benson moments. When he tells her to spend less time on the “he said, she said” cases and focus more on what he deems as “real rapes,” Benson replies, “I’m not gonna turn my back on any victim.” That is why we love her.
Recently, his attitude toward the SVU has improved, and he and Benson shared a moment of mutual respect in Season 25, after McGrath’s daughter was raped. Though the chief’s anger got the better of him, landing him in hot water with Internal Affairs, Benson wished him heartfelt good luck. —Alexis Rotnicki
