First appearing on Law & Order in 1993 — just a year before his rise to fame as Bernard the Elf in the smash holiday classic The Santa Clause — Krumholtz has since made three guest appearances across the franchise, never failing to lead viewers on a blood-pumping investigation. Boasting preternatural versatility across his career, you never know what kind of character Krumholtz will appear as next, leading to some must-watch courtroom showdowns over the years.

Krumholtz’s multi-decade acting career is defined by scene-stealing performances across genres, captivating audiences with his roles in both television and film projects. Check out his career and Law & Order highlights below.

Why you recognize Law & Order guest star David Krumholtz

Krumholtz rose to fame thanks to his beloved role as the North Pole’s sharpest mind, Bernard the Elf, in 1994’s The Santa Clause, returning alongside Tim Allen’s holly jolly Santa in the full Santa Clause saga of projects.

Krumholtz also left an impression on Wednesday Addams in the 1993 comedy Addams Family Values as Joel Glicker, with some other notable earlier roles including films like 10 Things I Hate About You, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Ray, and Superbad. Some of his more recent big-screen projects include playing Isidor Rabi in 2023’s Oscar-winning hit Oppenheimer, starring as Al Teller in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and he’ll appear in the 2026 Supergirl film as Zor-El, the heroine’s father in the comics.

David Krumholtz first guest-starred on Law & Order as a teen

Just a year before his Santa Clause shenanigans, a 15-year-old Krumholtz guest-starred in the Season 4 premiere of the original Law & Order series (“Sweeps”). Krumholtz played Scott “Scotty” Fisher, a young sexual assault survivor whose appearance on a tabloid talk show triggered a wild chain of events and mystery for 2-7 Detectives Briscoe and Logan to solve.

“It was wild,” Krumholtz recalled in an interview with TV Line, reminiscing over working with Law & Order icons like Paul Sorvino and Jerry Orbach during his 15-year-old debut. “I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. I just knew to say my lines in an interesting way, and I had a lot of fun. Everyone was really supportive, and it’s crazy that they kept me around.”

David Krumholtz played Dr. Vincent Prochik on SVU, taking Benson on an intense “trip”

SVU‘s 2010 episode “Wet” is a Season 12 must-watch, with Krumholtz playing an unforgettable SVU icon, Dr. Vincent Prochik, a co-conspirator to murder who produced lethal doses of mushrooms. After the SVU detectives investigated the death of a prominent CEO named Lindsay found in a public fountain, they were shocked to discover she’d been poisoned with a deadly cocktail of various South American mushrooms.

It didn’t help that the hours before the victim’s murder painted a mystifying picture. After attending a fundraising dinner for the Wishing Time Foundation, Lindsay later cheated on her husband after ingesting the mushrooms and filming a sex tape with a stranger that was later posted online.

After learning that a protester had crashed the fundraising dinner to raise concerns over Lindsay’s privatization of water rights, the SVU detectives were led to Dr. Prochik’s doorstep. There, they found Prochik’s lab where Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) opened up a simmering pot, getting a blast of hot air before Prochik urged her to leave his belongings alone.

Back at the precinct, Benson wasn’t able to get through many questions until she began experiencing the hallucinogenic effects of the shrooms, leading to Benson’s iconic SVU quote: “I’m not the one who stabbed the Captain with a pickle!” Luckily, her partner Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) was able to help get her out of that pickle.

Soon, the detectives discovered that Prochik was in love with Emma, the scorned granddaughter of the owner of the Wishing Time Foundation. Emma had grown envious of her grandmother’s favor for Lindsay, taking matters into her own hands with Prochik’s help.

David Krumholtz played Dr. Ray Goldberg on Season 25 of SVU

Krumholtz pulled a 180 during his latest SVU appearance in Season 25’s “The Punch List,” wherein he played a tragically disoriented victim who was sexually assaulted by a coerced escort who was held at gunpoint. While some SVU episodes will feature a quick cold open that cuts away to Benson and the squad at the crime scene, viewers get a chance to really get to know Ray and his loving wife before tragedy befalls him.

“I’m a victim [this time], it’s a great episode,” Krumholz told TV Line amid his exciting guest appearance. “…it’s a very different Law & Order: SVU, it’s a very different episode.”

What made Ray’s storyline so heartbreaking was his initial unwillingness to accept his assault due to blacking out and being unable to recall anything from the night. Eventually, with the help of an empathetic Benson and her detectives, Ray agreed to go undercover and return to the club where he first met his duo of assailants, successfully helping the SVU with a sting operation and securing justice.

Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit returns on Thursday, January 8 at 9/8c on NBC.