Carrie Preston on how playing ‘Elsbeth’ for 14 years is ‘definitely a gift’
The second season of “Elsbeth” is airing now on CBS, with Carrie Preston continuing in her Emmy-winning role of Elsbeth Tascioni that began on “The Good Wife” in 2010. “I just couldn’t even wait to get going again, because every day I look at it as a bit of a miracle,” she tells us. “I started playing this character 14 years ago, and never would have dreamt that it would have led to a show called ‘Elsbeth.’ So every day is definitely a gift.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
The Elsbeth character started out as a lawyer on “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” but now she’s a de facto detective helping to solve murders alongside Carra Patterson‘s Officer Kaya Blanke and Wendell Pierce‘s Captain Charles Wallace. All three series are created and executive produced by Robert King and Michelle King, with Jonathan Tolins serving as the showrunner and executive producer of “Elsbeth.” Preston won the Best Drama Guest Actress Emmy in 2013 for playing Elsbeth on “The Good Wife.”
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“We have twice as many episodes this season as we had in Season 1,” the actress states about this year’s 20-episode order. “So that means twice as many really cool story lines that we get to explore, but also twice as many guest stars, which I think is kind of the heart of our show. The people that are coming on and playing with us [are incredible], so I was looking forward to seeing who was gonna join us for Season 2 in that capacity.”
SEE‘Elsbeth’ is a modern-day ‘Columbo’
Speaking of guest stars, Preston’s real-life husband Michael Emerson will appear in the second season as a judge, which gets Elsbeth “back in the courtroom.” She jokes that she had to really “work with him” to “understand this medium called television” and the producers “took a chance on him.” All kidding aside, Emerson (who won two Emmys for playing villainous characters on “The Practice” and “Lost”) has a “juicy part” in Season 2 because, “On our show, if you’re the special guest star, you’re generally up to no good,” Preston teases.
Since Elsbeth is such a quirky and unique character, how does Preston go about playing her? “She’s sort of in my brain already now, because I’ve been coming back to her over the years for so long,” she reveals. “I’ve evolved as a person, as she has. There is some second nature to it. The writing, of course, is what I always start with, and luckily all across the board, from the ‘Good’ universe to the ‘Elsbeth’ universe, the writing has been spectacular.”
Also in our exclusive video interview, Preston talks about filming “Elsbeth” in the heart of New York City, she recalls playing Emerson’s character’s mother on “Lost,” and she answers our question about whether she’d like to do a crossover with Kathy Bates‘ “Matlock” since both characters are solving crimes on CBS.
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