After the demise of her short-lived Fox series Canterbury’s Law, Julianna Margulies, settled in New York with her attorney husband and young son, told her agents, “I need to find a cable show in New York,” because, she says, “they show an artistic expression that is free.”
They brought her the pilot script for a series called The Good Wife, a drama about the wife of a politician disgraced by a corruption and sex scandal, who returns to work as a defense attorney after her husband goes to jail. The show landed at CBS; now in her second season starring as title character Alicia Florrick, Margulies says, “I truly believe I have found my cable show — and it just happens to be on network. We do 23 episodes a year. I bet the consistency of our work, our production values, are the same as a cable show that does 12 episodes and has the luxury of time.”
Fresh from the previous night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards win as outstanding female actor in a drama series — her second consecutive victory — Margulies shared those thoughts while heading a panel of cast and creative team members at the Television Academy program “An Evening with The Good Wife,” held January 31 at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood. Also appearing were Archie Panjabi, last year’s Primetime Emmy Award winner as outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her role as legal firm in-house investigator Kalinda Sharma; Matt Czuchry as savvy young attorney Cary Agros; creators-executive producers Robert and Michelle King; executive producers David Zucker and Brooke Kennedy and casting director Mark Saks. Entertainment Weekly assistant managing editor Dalton Ross moderated.
Even though her last legal drama had not been successful, Margulies was drawn to the series because, she said, “This show was fresh, special. It wasn’t just a procedural. We’d never seen this kind of woman before on television — she’s not a hero, and she’s not a victim. Her world has fallen apart, and she has to pick herself up. I was very excited to play a character so different from who I am.”
Most panelists knew they were involved with something special while either working on or watching the pilot. “As a casting director, you’re the first one to hear the words,” Saks noted. “They came to our shabby conference room and I heard the sides and I thought, ‘Wow. If it sounds this good in the conference room, what’s it going to be like [when produced]?’”
As their characters develop, Czuchry said that it’s a challenge to find the balance between Cary’s tendency to be “kind of a jerk” and his moral center, while Punjabi said of Kalinda, “she’s one of the most complex characters I’ve ever played. How do you play a character that everyone else finds mysterious, and you yourself can’t get in her head?” For this actress, it was writing a character back story; on set, “I put on the boots and the leather jacket, and let Kalinda take over. Robert called and said, ‘She’s surprising me.’ I said, ‘Robert, I’m playing her, and she surprises me!’”
The Kings insisted that the judges on their show have personality; several are played by actors with strong comedic backgrounds, such as David Paymer, who first appeared in the pilot, Jerry Stiller and Ana Gasteyer. CBS okayed the funds to fly Paymer to shooting site Vancouver rather than casting locally. Indeed, the network has been strongly supportive of the show, according to Robert King. Though the series is in some respects a procedural, it takes on provocative current issues; it’s somewhat surprising, says an appreciative King, that CBS not only approves, “but is pushing the envelope with the subject matter.”
Ray Proscia is chair and Rocci Chatfield is executive producer of the Activities Committee. Robert O’Donnell is director of activities for the Academy; Melissa Brown is activities manager.