The sacrifices of her parents, infused with a multicultural upbringing, have helped shape Juliana Aidén Martinez into the person she is today. And now, the actor is bringing her talents to one of the world’s most well-known television shows.
The first-generation Colombian American, who recently starred in Netflix’s Emmy-nominated “Griselda” with Sofia Vergara, is the newest cast member of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”
She joins veteran stars Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T, alongside Peter Scanavino, Octavio Pisano and Kevin Kane, for Season 26, which premieres Thursday, Oct. 3, at 9 p.m. ET.
Martinez portrays a new detective, Kate Silva, on the SVU squad, which is led by Hargitay’s Capt. Olivia Benson.
In a recent interview with TODAY.com during Hispanic Heritage Month, Martinez opens up about “embracing” her family’s culture and the moment she met Hargitay. She also previews what to expect from her new character, which will include “some secrets.”
Gratitude for a ‘very multicultural’ upbringing
Martinez, who’s originally from Miami, explains she grew up with “a very relatable first-gen experience,” citing how much her parents sacrificed for her to be where she is now.
They also instilled in her the importance of embracing her culture and family values, and, of course, a love for Colombian food.
“My father and my aunts were very into cooking food, and they were very into dancing,” Martinez recalls, adding some of her childhood memories include dancing at family parties and playing competitive soccer.
“I was also very entrenched in how I grew up,” she says, “and I grew up very kind of, I would say, Caribbean/South American. It was always Jamaican, Trinidadian, Haitian, Cuban … Venezuelan. It was always very multicultural how I grew up, which I’m very grateful for to this day.”
She describes her hometown of Miami as “a very unique place” but also a “very cool experience.”
In her home growing up, Univision was on her parents’ TV “a lot.” She recalls watching many telenovelas with her parents.
While she’s from Miami, New York, where “SVU” is filmed, also holds a special place in her heart.
Martinez moved to New York as a teenager to study acting and graduated from Yale’s drama school in 2020.
“New York has always been, in some ways, more of a home for me because I grew up as a young woman in New York City,” she says.
Her ‘SVU’ journey
Martinez started watching “SVU” in her later teenage years, explaining she really became aware of the show during high school and college.
She traveled in high school with friends to Europe, and while in Germany she turned the TV on and saw “SVU” playing, which she describes as “such a surreal experience” because while “it is an American show,” it has “such international presence.”
Another “surreal” experience for Martinez happened years later when she learned she got the job on “SVU.”
She reflects on the “very crazy, serendipitous” process that all started with an email.
“I was in New York at the time, because I was in the final running for another project, and I remember I had said to my partner, who’s also a New Yorker, I said, ‘Man, it’d be so cool to be back in New York. I really miss it.’”
Her rep explained the show was looking for someone whom they really wanted to be “a permanent member of the team — to be a part of the squad. They’re really interested in you. They would love to see what you do.”
Martinez says she auditioned and sent the tape to the team over the course of a weekend before leaving for Los Angeles.
“And by Tuesday, they were like, ‘We’re taking you back on a plane, and we want to screen test with you right away,’” she recalls, adding the team was “being very intentional about it.”
She remembers meeting Hargitay for the first time and working with Pisano and “the whole crew.”
“They really wanted to make sure that it was the right fit for the team, and the experience with Mariska was also incredible,” she says.
Receiving a ‘powerful’ welcome from Mariska Hargitay
Martinez credits Hargitay for the “legacy” she has created with “SVU.”
“She’s such a forefront for American television,” she says. “What they have been able to do with the show, no other TV show in history has been able to do.”
“SVU” is U.S. television’s longest-running prime-time, live-action series, Hargitay’s Benson is prime-time’s longest-running, live-action character and Ice-T is the longest-running male actor on TV.
“I knew Capt. Benson,” Martinez says of Hargitay, “but I had no context of who Mariska Hargitay was as a person.”
Martinez shares that she has her own “kind of mechanism” that works for her where rather than getting nervous, she gets “really calm.”
She remembers a special moment she shared with Hargitay during one of her early days on set in the show’s squad room.
“I was very chill, and then I come in and immediately this booming voice was like, ‘Hey, you! Get over here.’ And I turned, and there was Mariska and she gave me a huge bear hug. She’s like, ‘This is where you belong. You belong here.’”
She’s immediately been like, ‘I’m putting you under my wing.’
juliana Aidén Martinez says of mariska hargitay welcoming her to “SVU.”
She describes that way of Hargitay introducing herself as “so warm and so generous and so powerful.”
“I remember being like, ‘Oh, there’s a lot I can learn from this woman.’ It impacted me really heavily. … I felt really welcomed, and I felt really inspired by the way that she had brought me in to a set that I had never entered,” Martinez says.
“It was immediately collaborative, immediately empowering, and I really like that,” she adds. “So it’s all kudos to her.”
Meet Detective Kate Silva
Martinez describes her character as someone who grew up in New York and whose father has been a longtime cop, which aligns with the description “SVU” executive producer David Graziano shared in a previous interview with TODAY.com.
Graziano described Silva’s father as the “deputy commissioner of collaborative policing, sort of like a new mode of policing for the NYPD.”
Martinez says Silva having a known parent in the NYPD comes with a preconceived notion.
She explains, “The reputation you hear of me before I come is that I’m someone who must have (gotten the job) being a nepo baby, etc., but then what you also see is that I have a lot of stuff that’s happening in my own personal life — and some secrets.”
One of those events that impacted Silva, Martinez says, is 9/11, which she also feels is a “very authentic” experience to her generation.
“We were kids of 9/11, and how that impacted me, and what I wanted to contribute to the world,” she continues. “And you see someone, with Kate, that is very authentic to who I am, what my experience is being a young woman in New York.”
Martinez describes that kind of woman as “fiery, passionate, someone who has had to show that she’s not to be messed with, and she has something to say.”
“I think that’s something that I find very true with young women today: that we want to expand past the barriers of what history has given us and we want to be known as like autonomous, powerful beings that we are,” she says, adding, “I definitely think Kate is an example of that.”
She also hopes that Detective Kate Silva serves as “a message of hope.”
How she’s vibing with her ‘SVU’ co-stars
Another “beauty” of the show, in Martinez’s eyes, is that “there’s so much that, I think, each person puts into their own character.”
“The way that Mariska is, and being a No. 1 on set, is the same way as Capt. Benson is in being a captain with her squad,” Martinez says. “I think it really reflects how authentic and how much we care as the actors, but also as the detectives in the squad. And we all really care about making something that’s important, especially with women’s storylines or with things that pertain to sexual assault.”
She adds that Hargitay, especially, has been “really lovely” to her.
“She’s immediately been like, ‘I’m putting you under my wing,’” Martinez recalls.
Another “SVU” legend Martinez has hit it off with is Ice-T.
“Oh my God, Ice is — Ice drops the gems,” she says. “You can’t go wrong in your life with Ice-T by your side.”
When it comes to her friendships with her fellow detectives, Pisano and Kane, who portray Joe Velasco and Terry Bruno, Martinez says she and Pisano share a “deep spiritual” kind of connection.
“If we were going to be in a desert talking about the nature of life and why we’re here, that’s Octavio,” she says. “Any deep conversation I need, is Octavio, and I love him for it.”
Martinez explains she and Kane have many mutual friends, and they share a unique bond.
“Kevin, to me, I said this kind of joking to him, but the way that we’re both dark and twisty,” she says of their friendship, referencing a popular quote from Meredith Grey on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“If it’s going to be a Meredith Grey, kind of a playful brutality, that’s me and Kevin,” she adds.
“Law & Order: SVU” premieres Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC and streams the following day on Peacock.
