Law and Order: SVU Has Had Tons of Famous Guest Stars, and These Are Our 18 Faves

When Banks appeared on SVU in 2001, her only role of note was in Wet Hot American Summer and her major stardom was years away. In hindsight, her dark role as a ruthless porn star and mom might be surprising to those who are used to her as a quippy, acerbic comic actress.

Years before his career took off, Cooper was just one of many actors making guest appearances on the L&O franchise. In season six, back in 2005, he played a charming lawyer who was helping clients conceal some dark secrets.

Fanning has been acting from a very young age, and SVU was one of her earliest roles. In a season eight episode, she played an abused little girl who's carrying some major psychological baggage.

In her first appearance on SVU, Panettiere was a relatively unknown child actress in a 2001 episode. By the time she returned to the show in 2004, she'd started clicking into more teen roles and played a manipulative high school student.

Paulson's guest spot on SVU came in 2009, but that wasn't her first appearance in the Law & Order universe. She had a guest role on the flagship show back in 1994 — and that was her very first screen acting credit!

Way back in 2004, long before Saldana was a go-to action heroine, she was a young guest star in an SVU episode as a young woman seeking justice for her wrongfully convicted father.

Fresh off the success of Mean Girls but years before her leading lady roles in Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables, Seyfried played a rape victim with a complicated story in a 2004 SVU episode.

A couple of years before he broke out with his role on Lost — and several years before stealing hearts on The Vampire Diaries — Somerhalder had a guest role in a 2003 episode as a decidedly dark villain of the week.

Williams guest-starred in the show's landmark 200th episode, playing an anti-authoritarian activist whose tactics go too far when he targets a key member of the SVU team.