Prior to joining the cast of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Diane Neal attended the prestigious Atlantic Theater Company Acting School in Manhattan. Demonstrating her great range she soon was on the top of every casting director's list. The young actress has done everything from comedy to action and drama in both television and film. Audiences and producers started noticing Neal for her roles as a rock & roll star on "Ed," a smart-ass nemesis on "The American Embassy," an outlandish fiancée on the Dennis Leary comedy pilot "Adam and Lenny" and, most recently, as the conflicted cop of tomorrow in Joel Silver's pilot "Future Tense." Diane Neal is back on Wolf Films/NBC Universal Television's top-rated drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" in the role of Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak.
Casey Novak is a young, tough, focused prosecutor who, while sometimes deeply affected by the horrific situations she deals with on the job, does not often reveal her emotions. Novak can sometimes see the world in black and white and follows the law strictly without sympathy for the suspects and their situation, unless she is convinced otherwise by the detectives in SVU, or by extreme mitigating circumstances. Her idealism becomes especially clear in situations involving abuse of power. Although she quickly lost her innocence when dealing with sex crimes, she still shows uneasiness when dealing with the gray areas of human involvement, preferring the letter of the law to the messiness of each individual reality.
(Photos courtesy of NBC)