page_title: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)
section_title: Guest stars
hierarchical_section_title: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3) / Cast / Guest stars
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken at the 40th Emmy Awards, August 1988 - Permission granted to copy, publish or post but please credit "photo by Alan Light" if you can
context_page_description: The third season of the television series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit premiered Friday, September 28, 2001 and ended Friday, May 17, 2002 on NBC. It occupied the Friday 10pm/9c timeslot once again.
context_section_description: The show "Wrath" has been repeatedly mentioned by Mariska Hargitay as one of her favorites. For the episode, Justin Kirk portrayed the wrongfully imprisoned man Eric Plummer. Upon being freed, he kills four people to exact revenge upon the police and Olivia Benson in particular. The scene in which Benson shoots Plummer was described as being very challenging to act. In an interview with Universal Channel, Hargitay said "I shot him dead and some things happened to me physically that I wasn't expecting." Although the video was cut to disguise it, Hargitay in fact mentions two Season 3 episodes in the interview. The second is "Inheritance" which shows Benson identify with a suspect who is a child of rape like herself. Marcus Chong played the suspect Darrell Guan who exemplifies the aggressive characteristics of his father.
  The episode "Ridicule" portrayed a man as a victim of gang rape by women for the first time on network television. The victim Peter Smith was played by Pete Starrett while his rapists were played by Paige Turco and Diane Neal, who would join the cast playing ADA Casey Novak in the fifth season after Stephanie March left the series. Mike Doyle portrayed Assistant Medical Examiner Karlan in the episode "Prodigy" before portraying CSU Forensics Technician Ryan O'Halloran in the fifth season.
  Nick Chinlund guest starred as condemned serial killer Matthew Brodus in the episode "Execution". Chinlund had originally auditioned to portray the role of Detective Elliot Stabler. John Ritter guest starred as Dr. Manning, a psychiatrist who becomes the prime suspect in his wife's murder, in the episode "Monogamy". Ritter was praised for his performance in the episode, which aired shortly before his death; Michael Buckley of TV Guide wrote that "The gradual change in his demeanor makes for a memorable piece of acting."
  Martha Plimpton was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her role in "Denial". She played Claire Rinato, a drug addict who is traumatized by having learned terrible things about her mother, played by Mary Steenburgen. Detective Tutuola tries to help her character recover from the addiction using his background as a narcotics detective. In "Guilt", Bret Harrison played Sam Cavanaugh, a child molestation victim who is reluctant to testify against his abuser. This appearance later helped Harrison secure his best known role in Reaper, which was created by the same writers as "Guilt".
  In the second last episode, "Competence", a girl with Down Syndrome struggles to prove that she is mentally competent to take care of a child. Lois Smith played the girl's mother and James Badge Dale played the girl's boyfriend. One of the writers of the episode, Robert F. Campbell, mentioned Lois Smith and "Competence" when reflecting on his favourite experiences as an SVU writer. The season finale "Silence" deals with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Eric Stoltz portrayed a priest who initially lies to protect clergymen higher up but eventually comes forward with the truth. Charlayne Woodard guest starred in the finale as Sister Peg, a role which she later reprised several times.
caption: John Ritter portrayed a doctor accused of murdering his wife in the 2002 episode "Monogamy", which aired shortly before his death in 2003. NBC promoted the episode with the tagline "See John Ritter as you've never seen him before."
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