NEED TO KNOW
- Law & Order: SVU first premiered in 1999
- On May 15, the show’s 26th season will conclude
- While some of the original cast, like Mariska Hargitay, are still on the show today, others played their characters for decades
In the nearly 30 years it’s been on air, Law & Order: SVU has retained many of its original cast members.
Mariska Hargitay has starred as the beloved Detective Olivia Benson since the show’s debut season, a role that’s earned her numerous accolades, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Now, the show is wrapping its 26th season on May 15.
Though she and Ice-T’s Sergeant Fin Tutuola are the only cast members who have remained throughout the entirety of the show, many series regulars have enjoyed decade-long runs with the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Unit. Even Benson’s former on-screen partner Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), who left the series in 2011, returned in 2021 as a recurring guest star.
When asked about SVU’s longevity in May 2024, Hargitay credited the show’s success to being in the right place at the right time.
“The world and the culture needed an Olivia Benson, needed somebody to talk about these things and fight for survivors and believe victims,” she told Variety. “The inception of the show was so genius that way, because Olivia was the loving mother that we all want and Stabler was the angry, protective father.”
She continued, “It was this beautiful, perfect construct of what an injured soul needed.”
From their earliest episodes to their final appearances, read on to see the Law & Order: SVU cast in their first and last season of the show.
Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson
Since 1999, Hargitay has starred as the one and only NYPD Detective Olivia Benson. Her character, who becomes captain of Manhattan’s Special Victims Unit in season 21, is not only the longest-running primetime drama character in television history, but also a powerful symbol of justice.
“This character is to me heroic and something that our culture needed,” Hargitay told E! News in October 2019. “Somebody who fought for women and who elevated women’s voices and who bears witness to such pain and there is great healing in that.”
She continued, “I feel very privileged and blessed to have grown in this character and get to affect as many people as I have been privileged to affect in my life.”
Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler
In 1999, Meloni began his iconic run starring opposite Hargitay as NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler. He played the fiercely protective cop for 12 years before he abruptly left the police drama over a contract dispute in 2011.
After appearing in projects like True Blood and The Handmaid’s Tale, Meloni reprised his role in 2021 to star in the spinoff series Law & Order: Organized Crime. Stabler and Benson even reunited in a crossover event between their two respective shows, and he has continued to appear in episodes of SVU.
“There’s nobody who knows these characters better than she and I,” Meloni told Today in February 2022 of his and Hargitay’s roles. “With all due respect to the writers, whatever you see is really she and I figuring it out.”
Ice-T as Fin Tutuola
The second-longest running character in SVU’s tenure is Ice-T’s portrayal of Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola. The rapper, born Tracy Lauren Marrow, started playing the character in 2000 and has no plans to leave anytime soon.
Ice-T told Jimmy Fallon during a March 2023 appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon that he plans to “stay on until the wheels fall off.”
The previous month, the rapper joked with Today that he wouldn’t mind if Fin was “the last one standing.”
“At the end of the day, hopefully they don’t twist my character and make me go out like a sucker or a rat or some bulls—,” he said “They let me go out right — in a blaze of glory, some kind of way.”
Richard Belzer as John Munch
Richard Belzer played Detective John Munch years before his character stepped foot into the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit. The late actor — who died in 2023 at the age of 78 — first landed the role in 1993 on the NBC show Homicide: Life on the Street.
After the police drama was cancelled in 1999, Belzer quickly reprised the role months later on the debut season of SVU. He played Detective (and in later seasons, Sergeant) Munch until his exit in 2013, and often spoke about the similarities between him and his on-screen persona.
“The writers know me and they know my interest,” he told the Warwick Advertiser in November 2012. “So when it makes sense, they fold that into some stories. My character doesn’t trust authority, but he’s a cop … I have to uphold the law but I am also very suspicious of the law. It’s a great character for me.”
Dann Florek as Captain Donald Cragen
Dann Florek’s Captain Donald Cragen has been a part of the Law & Order universe since 1990. The actor first played the role on the original series for three years and reprised it for the spinoff SVU in 1999.
Florek remained a staple in the show for the next 15 years before exiting in 2014. His 400-episode run made him the third most tenured cast member on SVU.
BD Wong as Dr. George Huang
Actor BD Wong first appeared as FBI psychiatrist Dr. George Huang in the second season of SVU in 2001. But he became a series regular — and the unit’s resident psychiatrist and criminal profiler — two seasons later, a position he would hold for the next decade.
Though Wong officially left the series in season 12, he continued to make guest appearances up until season 17.
Tamara Tunie as Dr. Melinda Warner
SVU fans were introduced to Tamara Tunie’s long-running portrayal of medical examiner Dr. Melinda Warner in season 2. Though the actress told DuJour magazine that she was only supposed to appear in one episode (with a possibility of recurring episodes), her place in the series “evolved into 16 years of Dr. Warner.”
Tunie made cameos on SVU until the 17th season in 2021 and has also appeared in episodes of the Stabler-focused spinoff Organized Crime.
Kelli Giddish as Amanda Rollins
Four years after she had a guest role in season 8 of SVU as rape victim Kara Dawson, Kelli Giddish started playing Detective Amanda Rollins in season 13, taking Stabler’s place in the unit following his exit.
The actress held the role from 2011 to 2022, before announcing in a statement to PEOPLE that she was leaving the police procedural.
“Playing Rollins has been one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life,” she said. “There is simply no other character on TV like Rollins. She’s grown and changed, and I have as well. I started on this show when I was in my late 20s and I’m grateful I got to spend so many of my adult years with Rollins in my life.”
Peter Scanavino as Dominick “Sonny” Carisi
In 2014, Peter Scanavino joined the SVU cast as NYPD Detective Dominick “Sonny” Carisi, a Staten Island-born cop with dreams of being in the courtroom. Those dreams came to fruition in season 21 when he traded in his badge to become an assistant district attorney.
Though the actor told Today that he never imagined he would play Carisi for over a decade, he’s “certainly glad” that he has. Scanavino said, “I’m very grateful to have been on this show, which has changed my life completely.”
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