Carrie Preston interview: ‘Elsbeth’
“Dreams can actually come true,” declares Carrie Preston about starring in the CBS drama series “Elsbeth,” a show built around the character she made famous on “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight.” Though “people had suggested” to the actress that a series centering on her breakout, Emmy-winning role would be “a good idea” in the past, it didn’t actually start taking shape until 2020 during the height of the pandemic, when series creators Michelle King and Robert King were rewatching the classic series “Columbo” and thought that the format might suit the actress’ quirky, endearing attorney. The performer says of the spinoff finally coming to fruition, “I still don’t believe it, and we’ve already shot an entire first season.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
While it might seem surprising that the Kings would pluck an attorney from two acclaimed legal dramas and place her at the center of a murder mystery, Preston says Elsbeth’s detective skills have been a part of the character from the start, dating all the way back in 2010. “When I first got offered the role of Elsbeth on the first season of ‘The Good Wife,’ the way they described her is she’s like a female Columbo,” remembers the actress, sharing that the Peter Falk series and “Elsbeth” both center on an “unconventional, unorthodox person who basically uses being underestimated to solve cases.” The performer describes the first script of the show by the Kings as “one of those perfect pilots.” In the premiere, Elsbeth moves from Chicago to New York City, where she observes the NYPD under a “consent decree” and keeps an eye the captain of the department as a part of a Department of Justice investigation into corruption.
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Prior to this new series, Preston portrayed Elsbeth on 19 episodes of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight.” The show affords her the opportunity to “live inside the skin of the character on a daily basis,” and she is therefore continuing to learn more and more about the lawyer-turned-sleuth. The first season has certainly honored the character’s backstory that was established on those earlier shows with references to Elsbeth’s son Teddy and ex-husband (played on “The Good Wife” by Will Patton), and the actress has gone back to those episodes to do “little spot checks” to refresh her memory on all the small details. She also revisited her earlier work to see if she “could steal anything” about her physicality from those appearances and weave them into her work now.
Each episode of “Elsbeth” reveals the identity of the murderer in the opening segment, and Elsbeth almost always sniffs out the culprit instantly. Preston says that the character is such a natural and effective detective because “her brain works differently than other people in that I think she’s able to hold a lot of detail and information at once… Her brain synapses fire very quickly but simultaneously.” The first season has featured a murderers’ row of guest stars for the Emmy winner to square off against including Stephen Moyer, Jane Krakowski, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Retta, Blair Underwood, Gina Gershon, Keegan-Michael Key and others. The actress says that each one has posed a unique challenge for the title character, though Elsbeth is “not afraid of a challenge, so much so that she gets herself alone with these people that she knows have murdered people.” To that end, she has threaded “moments of being scared” into her performance.
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“Elsbeth” has introduced two new series regulars to play opposite Preston: Carra Patterson as Officer Kaya Blanke and Wendell Pierce as Captain C.W. Wagner. Kaya forms an immediate bond with Elsbeth, but that bond is tested when the officer questions Elsbeth about the real reason she has joined the department. The actress says of that pivotal scene, “What I love about Elsbeth is she’s very positive, she’s very vulnerable, she lets herself be vulnerable… Her friendship with Kaya was more important than hiding what she’s really there for.” Since Elsbeth comes to New York to secretly investigate Wagner, the performer has portrayed a game of cat-and-mouse with Pierce, who she characterizes as “one of our finest actors.” She loves getting to play dramatic confrontation scenes with him because “there’s such conflict and there’s such cost. It costs us both to have that conversation because we do ultimately care for each other.”
“Elsbeth” marks the 14th year of collaboration between Preston and the Kings. She says of the Emmy-nominated writing and producing duo, “The two of them are an extraordinary example of what leadership should look like, and marriage. The way they work together is so complimentary… They’re incredibly generous, but they’re also very specific, which is great for all departments from leaders.” She stresses that they are also “very loyal” to their collaborators. “Elsbeth” has been renewed for a second season, and though the actress does not know where the show will be heading, she hopes that the Kings and showrunner Jonathan Tolins “mess the structure up a tiny bit to keep the audience guessing.”