LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT New Addition Juliana Aidén Martinez: ‘It’s Been Such an Honor to Be Part of the Show’

Juliana Aidén Martinez has been a familiar face for TV viewers over the past few years (thanks to Netflix’s GRISELDA, as well as guest spots on 9-1-1, THE BLACKLIST, and PRODIGAL SON), but she’s about to embark on one of her biggest on-screen roles yet: LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT’s Detective Kate Silva.

On-screen, Silva is introduced to viewers in season 26’s opening hour, “Fracture” (airing Thursday, October 3)—several weeks into her SVU tenure—as the team has to contend with a high-profile attack on a group of law students. Off-screen, Martinez joined SVU as a new series regular over the summer, in a milestone year: The show, which is the longest-running primetime drama in TV history, just concluded its 25th season (which included the show’s 550th episode) and also celebrated the 25th anniversary of its premiere in September. 

“SVU, as a show, it’s done something no other TV show has done,” Martinez tells Give Me My Remote. “So the legacy, or…the iconic nature of the show, cannot be dismissed, because it has done so much in terms of just TV history.”

“But then, also, more importantly, I think it’s done so much for women and for viewers of the show,” she continues. “That you have a solution, where you find people who really believe [they can help] people who are going through these traumatic events, typically sexual assaults, and something that has traumatized them. That [viewers are] seeking someone to fight for them and someone to defend them.”

Martinez previously teased to GMMR that in the NBC drama, “Kate has tremendous respect for where [Mariska Hargitay’s] Captain Benson is…There’s a lot that she can learn from her—and then [Kate] has her own mission that she wants to accomplish.” And the actress notes there’s a parallel to her own off-screen relationship with Hargitay.

“The importance of the messaging of the show, to me, is the core of why joining the show was so important,” she says. “What Mariska does outside of the show—with philanthropy and women’s rights and advocating for survivors of sexual assault—is something that I, as an actor, as a performer, also want to do in my journey in making the world a better place [with] whatever resources I have. I think that SVU is the perfect platform for that.”

“It’s been such an honor to be part of the show and part of a team that really cares about making the world better,” she continues. “I’m really grateful for that.”

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, Season Premiere, Thursday, October 3, 9/8c, NBC

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