MARLEE MATLIN
Oscar cred: One win (1986's Children of a Lesser God)
Appeared on SVU: April 27, 2004, and May 17, 2005. She received a 2004 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
Exec producer Neal Baer says: ''We wrote a show for her, because I'd always wanted to work with her again. [He'd done so previously on ER.] She's a gas and a lovely person, and we wanted her to play against type. She played somebody who helped someone commit suicide — a very controversial episode. Munch [Richard Belzer] got very involved with her character, and we thought, Wow, that's really moving‚ let's bring her back. The second episode was a story about whether people should be able to buy kidneys, and she played a woman who had a disease that caused deafness and kidney failure. It's very unusual for our show to do two arcs.''