‘Law & Order: SVU’ has huge cast shakeup as 2 actors abruptly exit
Olivia Benson’s elite squad is losing two of their own.
Octavio Pisano, who portrays Detective Joe Velasco, and Juliana Martinez, who is Detective Kate Silva on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” are exiting the NBC series at the end of the current Season 26.
Pisano, 38, joined the drama during Season 23 as a former undercover agent turned SVU detective.
Martinez, 34, just joined the cast during the current season as a former Brooklyn homicide unit detective who transferred over to the 16th Precinct.
Neither has publicly commented on the news.
Martinez, however, did take to to share photos of the cast.
“I hope you tuned into Law & Order Crossover and Organized Crime tonight!! It’s also a SZN wrap on SVU. ♥️ Thankful to everyone who has tuned in and this whole, wonderful cast tonight,” she wrote. “Y’all ruled my world x.”
Despite Martinez calling it a wrap, the season had three episodes left at the time, with the season finale, “Post-Rage,” airing on May 15.
“Law & Order: SVU” follows detectives and legal figures as they investigate and prosecute sex-based crimes. Many episodes are loosely ripped from the headlines.
The series — created by Dick Wolf — premiered 1999 with Mariska Hargitay (Olivia Benson), Christopher Meloni (Elliot Stabler), Dann Florek (Donald Cragen), Richard Belzer (John Munch) and Ice-T (Odafin Tutuola) as the core cast.
Hargitay, 61, still leads the show with Ice-T, 67. Meloni, 64, exited in 2011 and reprised his role as Stabler 10 years later.
The actor now stars in the spinoff “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” which is airing its fifth season on Peacock.
In April, Hargitay reflected on starring on the procedural show for 26 years.
“It feels like running a marathon, and when you’re in it, all you see is this much ahead of you. I’ve been so busy, so challenged, and it requires so much of me that all I can do is be on the treadmill of trying to keep up,” she said on
Hargitay sees parallels between her and Benson climbing up the ranks of their respective fields.
“I would describe it as sort of the perfect feminist story,” she said. “There are these stepping stones of growth and integration and owning something. It’s been such a beautiful evolution and such a beautiful journey.”
The actress confirmed the legendary story of how she and Meloni were cast: The actors stepped into a room together and Wolf, 78, said, “That’s it.”
“Absolutely,” Hargitay stated when Geist, 50, asked if she felt that way too. “It was sort of a once in a lifetime experience. I knew quickly that we had this kind of magical chemistry. Chris and I are polar opposites in terms of who we are as people, and yet there was this yin-yang. When they paired us I was like, ‘Oh this is done.'”
