Law and Order: Mariska Hargitay is Detective Olivia Benson

When it comes to filling roles for characters, the creators and folks in charge of casting, did a great job of selecting actress, Mariska Hargitay to play the role of fictional New York Detective, Olivia Benson, opposite her partner, Christopher Meloni, who plays her fictional character’s equally fictional partner. 

Hargitay, who has received a Golden Globe and an Emmy award for her portrayal, does a masterful job with her character who is pretty much the polar opposite of Meloni’s. Benson is tough, compassionate, and completely dedicated to her job, to the point that she has no personal life of which to speak. 

This dedication, however, sometimes wreaks havoc on her emotional state. Many times, she empathizes with victims of sexual assault so much that, when an abuser evades justice or a victim suffers, she holds herself personally responsible.
Benson has also occasionally let her compassion for victims of abuse cloud her professional judgement, an example being a case in which she fought her boss, Captain Don Cragen, to get leniency for a woman who killed her rapist. 

Benson and her partner, Detective Elliot Stabler are so close that some fans of the show think of them as brother and sister. However, their relationship is not without friction, as they frequently take different stances on cases they investigate; Benson is quicker to take the victim's side than Stabler is, and they periodically have intense arguments about how best to close cases. 

In the 2006 season premiere, Benson successfully infiltrated an eco-terrorist group, and took a leave of absence from SVU to work with the FBI. While working for the FBI, she assumed the Persephone Freed-James, taken from the girlfriend of an eco-terrorist. Several episodes later, SVU tried to get in touch with her so that she could testify in a rape trial. Near the end of the episode, "Infiltrated", her time with the FBI comes to an end and she returns to SVU to testify in the rape case.