Work in Progress with Sophia BushFrom a small-town girl doing plays as an 8-year-old in Macon, Georgia, to being a leading lady on her own hit TV show! Carrie Preston shines as 'Elsbeth Tascioni' in one of CBS' most successful dramas, a show she thought would never see the light of day!
Carrie Preston is opening up to Sophia about reprising the Emmy-winning role of 'Elsbeth,' which viewers first saw on the small screens 15 years ago in "The Good Wife," and what it's like playing a woman of a certain age reinventing herself. She also shares her journey to becoming an actress, director, and producer and using her platform for good.
Hey everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress, Whipsmarties. We have a guest today who has been dubbed the Queen of Quirk by The New York Times, and you know how I love a quirky lady. Carrie Preston joins us on the show today. I am so excited to talk to her about how she built her unconventional attorney named Elsbeth Tousconi in her hit series Elsbeth, because this character actually originated in a guest episode on The Good Wife and just kept coming back for more, then appeared on The Good Fight, and then apparently thanks to a Colombo rewatch, the creators said, hold the phone, that's the show that Elsbeth. I want to talk to Carrie about how she's carried this incredible character over fifteen years, how she figures out how to make so many people in the world feel represented on screen, what brings her joy as an artist, and how she found her artistic voice it was earlier than you might think, and what it's like to figure out ways to use her platform for good being so rooted in joy from supporting the LGBTQ community with glad to advocating for folks with Parkinson's alongside Michael J. Fox and his foundation. Carrie really takes her goodness on screen to off, and I just can't wait to hear from her how she manages to balance it all. Let's dive in with Carrie Preston. Thank you for coming on the show. I'm so gigd you're here. You're just the absolute coolest human and I'm like really amped about it.
Well, I should say first that I was on a jury once for an indie film festival and yeah, yeah, was one of the in competition and it was like such an easy this should be the winner for me. Oh my gosh, it win.
So there you carry.
Thank you you and Michael. You guys were great together.
Oh thank you. We had such a special time making that movie.
The two of you were just like electric together. I don't even know. I mean, it was just like riveting from the minute it started and it was brilliant the whole thing.
Oh, thank you so much. That really means a lot. I really appreciate that, and you were awesome. Thanks well, You're so awesome, And I just I love when I get to sit down with people whose work I adore and who are just doing such cool things in the world. But I kind of like to go back to catch up to where we are are, because I feel like when you're a person who you know, folks know they love watching you on TV. You know, they know your body of work, they know you, and I know you as this person. But I wonder if you know you got to be in you know, your own sci fi movie and hang out with yourself when you were nine or ten, you know, like have a day in the park in the city with your younger self. Would you do you think you would see yourself today in her? And do you think she would be like, oh cool, I see how I turned into you? Or did your life just take like a totally unexpected series of turns and you had no idea you'd be doing this for a living.
You know, I grew up and making Georgia okay, And you know that's a smaller town. It's not. It's not the smallest, you know, it's a but it's in Georgia. And you know, there weren't like actors that were coming up in that town, you know what I mean. It was It wasn't like that was the thing that you you would you would aspire to do was to be an actor.
Yeah, you didn't grow up like next to Times Square.
I wasn't like going to the professional after school or any of that stuff. But I'm definitely a little bit of what you might call a lifer, you know. I started to doing az when I was eight years old. My older brother John, he started doing community theater and I was like, I want to be like him, So I started doing plays and we had very supportive parents. My mom. My mom's an artist. She was a painter, a sculptor and did art therapy. Wow, even knew what that was. I mean, she called it expressive art. She didn't get a degree in art therapy, but she got it. She got certified and expressive art, which is very similar, So she was doing that kind of thing. My dad geotechnical engineer, so he's like the left brain side of things, wow, you know, and my mom was like the right brain side of things. And luckily they they didn't try to fight us on that, like, you know, they were like, oh, you want to be creative, We're going to let you do that. I mean I was I was when I was like six years old. I remember playing in the front yard and acting like there were cameras in the trees and then trying to act natural. Wow, like why, don't know why. I don't know how that feeling like cameras were watching me. So that was just something that I don't know was maybe ingrained in me. But you know, by the time I'm twelve, I'm starting my own theater company with the kids in the neighborhood. You know, I was Now I was that kid who just was like, I love to do this. Now. I don't know if it was because I needed more order in my life. I don't know what it was, but I was gravitating towards it, and I started doing community theater and I would you know, but I wasn't playing like the leads. I was always playing the comic sidekick. I was always playing like you know, and I would put on the fanny pack and the flasses and the you know, I would do the funny character voices. I was already pressing around with that and not really knowing what I was doing.
Wow, it's so interesting that you say that. Every once in a while, I think about moments in my own childhood where I go, oh, there it was where you know, my parents would be out and I was finally old enough to stay home by myself, and I'd be like doing a scene in the living room alone because I felt like, oh, I've got a house all to myself, and now I can work on this. And even now, I mean this morning, I was, you know, walking from one end of the subway station to the other to catch a train, and I was like, God, this whole thing just feels like a movie. And I catch myself realizing, like, if I was shooting this, I'd have a camera on a Delli track over there, and oh, look at that cool and there's a guy with a you know, a violin over here, and I'm always thinking about it that way, but I I didn't. I guess I've never really even thought to talk about that until you just did and I went, oh, we do. We do have a weird thing that we do, I guess when we're our day.
Yeah, I mean, because otherwise why would we be doing it? Because it's a very hard business to get into.
So there must be you know, into me and to be in yeah, and to maintain and do all of the peripheral things that go go along with it, yeah, you know, including the not getting the.
Job part, which is way more than the getting the job. Oh so all of that stuff. If we didn't have this, I don't know original kernel of Yeah, this is this is what I this is what I want, what I need to do, I at least need to try to do it. Or I got to be creative in some way. And I've always felt that way, like I got to be creative in some way, Like even when I was younger. Yes, it was the acting part, but I started directing and writing and doing all that stuff at the same time because I just wanted to make things, you know, And I would also make puppets and paint and make you know, because my mom was an artist. You know, we were always doing, you know, some kind of arts. So there was an appreciation for it and just a desire to express myself in some way. And so that has come in handy as my life has gone on in this in this creative pursuit, because when I find that, Okay, well maybe I'm not being hired right now, well I'm going to go ahead and make my own stuff, right, there's that empowerment there that I think, I think it was nurtured. I'm lucky it was nurtured at a young age by parents who didn't try to talk me out of it, by teachers who were like, yeah, yeah, you could do that. We don't quite know how to teach how to do that, but we can get you to the places that can you know, that kind of thing.
That's really really very cool because what I'm hearing you talk about is the fact that, as the phrase goes, because you could see it, you were empowered to believe you could be it. Your mom was an artist, so you could be an artist. And I think to be given the tools to express yourself from such a young age and then to have that natural inclination to want to use those tools be fostered.
What a cool.
Just what a cool series of empowering events that must have felt like as a kid.
Yeah, yeah, it did. And also just the the joy of it, you know, the you know how it is like when you when you key and when you're doing the role and it just starts to take over and you just feel like you're expressing something bigger, You're in charge of giving something bigger to the world. You know, yes, you know, the the translation of what it is to be a human through you know, through your your instrument. You know, I don't know that. There's just something very thrilling about that, and it's it feels like a contribution.
Yeah yeah, I always I talk about this sort of singularity I experience where it feels like for me, the journey into the character, where it really comes alive in me. It's the amount of work it requires and the creativity and the excitement and the joy you're talking about. And then suddenly I feel feelings that I know are not mine, but my body doesn't know we're not mine. And in that moment, it's like those feelings can represent everyone who might watch it. At some point I can give it away and it's you know, it's like the it's like the two butterfly wings, and I feel like I'm just in the body in the center and it's so.
Cool. Yeah yeah, like Martha Graham says, the body never lies. Yeah, you know, And so it maybe a little you got to like work on your own mental health because sometimes majorly, like you just said, your body doesn't know and so sadly you're carrying some kind of trauma around that you actually don't have.
So yeah, yeah, I feel like that's an interesting part of our job nobody ever really talks about is like you you really have to have some mental health practices if you want to stay sane and do this for a living. Yes, it sounds like you got to build such a big toolkit from such an early age. But to your point, you know, making Georgia is not times square. Was it a surreal kind of adjustment for you to leave home and come to Juilliard and be in the mix of this city and that kind of professional pursuit.
Well, I got the great privilege and benefit of going to some undergraduate schools before I went, so I got to have a little bit of a bridge. Okay, you know, so I went first, I went to the College of Charleston for a couple of years, and then I met a professor there who said, let's get you some stronger training than we have here. So they got me. He got me to audition for a very tiny, but very powerful, little liberal arts school in southern Indiana called the Ununiversity of Evansville. And there was a Loudes who had started that program uh and and fostered the program and turned it into really a world class little training womb. And so I went there for a couple of years and really got some really solid training. And one of the things that he and the professors there take great pride in is that they helped place their students in the top graduate acting schools in the country. Yeah, and so they really have like an incredible rate still of student to you know, Juilliard, Yale, m y u UCSD like the you know, some some really solid solid training grounds. And I loved school. I was one of those wirdos that just loved me too, and I got the top of it. So I just kept going, you know, so because I ended up going from undergrad to four years at Julia Julias was at the time when I was there, a four year program, and so you know, that was an additional four years. But it was a really good way for a small town girl to acclimatize herself to that what you were saying, large ocean of a place, you know. And uh and so I had that, I had the the you know, the benefit of being in a in a school that could prepare me for it, and so having that kind of insulated vibe, but still being right smack in the middle of Manhattan, you know, Lincoln Center, you know, which had its wonderful you know benefits, which was going getting to go see all those shows and you know around all those different artists at that school. Yeah, all the different disciplines you know, really shaped me and had you know, gave me even more of an appreciation of all the fellow artists that you know, I had the privilege of being around.
What were some of your favorite things that you got to do as a student there.
I mean we were there, you know, from eight am until like midnight, you know, every day we were there, and so we would have these like classroom projects, you know, so it felt like we were just doing these plays for each other and for the faculty and for each other, and so that we were able to feel like less of the pressure of performance. The school, the the program is built to kind of lead you up to the public performance side of things, and you know, to get you in a place where you feel free and stuff and you're working with the same people. You know, you have your core class, and that's who you go through this four years with, you know, for better and sometimes for worse. I mean it's a lot, you know, it's a little bit like boot camp for acting. You know, there's a joke that some people call it the jail yard school because you know, you're kind of stuck in this like you know, pressure cooker. In some ways, I found it to be invigorating. I'm still very close to a lot of my classmates, and we had a crazy class. But along the way, we formed our own theater company, and we ended up doing a season, a couple of plays in between in the summer between our second and third year of school, and so that was like a really special thing too. To to to get this group of people and take what we were learning out into the world, and.
That's really cool. And the desire to keep going, you know, it's your summer break, and all you want is more of what you're doing in school. What a great indicator that you're on the right life path, right.
Yeah, exactly.
It's so cool.
Got to because I was studying the classics, you know, I was learning how to do Shakespeare and stuff. From the very beginning of college, I started auditioning for summer Shakespeare programs, and pretty much every summer I would go to you know, Georgia Shakespeare, Utah Shakespeare, California Shakespeare. I would do I would get to do Shakespeare even when we did our little Juilliard company, we did a Shakespeare play, so you know, I was constantly cutting my teeth on you know, some of the the most you know, iconic literature, dramatic literature, that they're the stuff that we all keep going back to.
Yeah, artists, I love that.
How fun.
We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. I imagine when you get to reflect, you you know, they say hindsight's twenty twenty, right, like you see everything so clearly. You see what you were building and what you loved and was coming back to this character of Elsbeth. Did it kind of feel as exciting as the way you're talking about looking back on that Shakespeare period. Because it's not lost on me that you started playing this character fifteen years ago and then played her across two shows and now you're playing her in this third show. It's like, it feels like a thing you get to revisit and build and build and build on in a world. And you know, maybe it's a stretch, but in my observation in this moment, I'm like, hold on, it almost feels like you returning to Shakespeare over and over and over again. It's like you're getting to do a version of that now, or does that track or does it feel crazy that tracks?
I hadn't really connected that those dots, So thank you for that, because it really, it really is making me think about it in a in a in a way that feels like it's part of a longer trajectory. You know, there's not a day that goes by that I'm not amazed, grateful, and humbled by getting to play this character. Not a day goes by because it is, like you just said, it's not lost on me. It is really not lost on me. I'm I'm a fifty eight year old woman who has been doing character roles my whole career, happily supporting. I've had played leads in movies, et cetera, indies and stuff, but mostly I'm you know, I've been there to support you, and happily. I love it, you know, I love being trusted with those kinds of roles. You know, when it first started out, you know, everybody who always wants to kind of pigeonhole you and tell you like this is your type, you know, And so when I was young, it was like you're the ingenoux and I was always like, okay, but I don't make that angeneu really interesting because like I want to just play you know, like the pretty young thing, like especially in Shakespeare. Yeah, And when I first got out of Juilliard, I got to audition for The Tempest, which was being done as Shakespeare in the Park. It was George C. Wolfe, the Great Director's first Shakespeare that he'd ever directed. It was Patrick Stewart playing Prospero. And I was auditioning for Miranda, which is, you know, one of the news in the Shakespeare cannon. But I was like, yeah, but if your girl, who's you know, fifteen and you have only since you were a baby, lived on an island with a bunch of dudes, your dad a monster affair, you know you're gonna be like the pretty girl.
In the dress.
Like how are you going to do that?
No way, You're going to be.
One of the lost boys, gonna be a tomboy you want to be. So I went whole hard on that, you know, hot off on my hair, went for the tomboy, the damming you know thing, and really turned that, tried to turn that character into somebody a different interpretation of that role. And got you know, got the park, got to do it. We moved it to Broadway and I may mayor Broadway debut doing that, and I thought, no, you don't have You can be a character actor in a conta news package. You can be is what we're always doing character acting. I mean we're creating characters, right, Like, aren't we supposed to be doing that. We're not supposed to be doing the audience's interpretation of what the leading lady is. We're supposed to bring who we are married, well read on the page, the text work that we do, the work we do with the other actors, the work we do with the director, and create something that's fresh. So I felt that and that's part of just because I went to school and I was taught to do the deep, you know, mining of the character. So when I got the role, this is all leading up to when I got the role of Elsbeth, I tried to apply the same principles to that as I add to these Shakespeare roles, like what are we going to do with this character that makes her different?
Yeah?
How do I bring myself? What am I going to do? How does this woman think? You know? Just started doing that deeper work and not just be now part of it was that was written, but you know, not just be like the the lawyer of the week, like what can we do this? Something something singular, and the fact that they were given they gave me that license, the fantastic that always starts with the page, but they gave me that license and then kept inviting me back to well yeah, and then it became this alchemy between what they were writing and what I was doing and you know, here we are, but there's no guarantee that like we would get to do a show that way. Well, like when they told me this was in twenty twenty, when Robert Michelle you know, reached out to me because it was COVID. We were all locked down. They were seeing the end of the good fight. They knew that that was going to be coming to an end soon, and they were like, what are we going to do next? And they had been rewatching episodes of Colombo and they were like, huh, maybe that's maybe we could put Elsbeth Tasioni in a situation like that. Then simultaneously, Elizabeth Vincent Telly, who's a writer at the New York Times, wrote an article about what she was doing during COVID was watching episodes of Colombo, and the last line of the article was, we don't need a reboot of Colombo. Just give Elsbeth Tasioni her own show. No, yes, And then I'm just saying hills, right. So Robert and Michelle they saw that Robinda Michelle King and they saw that and they were like, Okay, that's like, this is weird because this is how what we were thinking. And then they started the process. But that was in twenty twenty and they called and they were like, do you want to do this? I was like, uh yeah, I mean obviously, obviously, and then it just wouldn't happen, wouldn't happen for years, and I was like, Okay, I guess it's not going to happen. And then, you know whatever, a year and a half ago.
And now Elizabeth is vack. When you look back to the beginning, you know, when you talk about that character work, you know, the ways you wanted to build her into more than just a lawyer of the week. What are the things that you started to noodle with fifteen years ago that have become so core to your character.
Now, Yeah, that's a good question because I don't like to revisit like my past work too much. Yeah, in my head, I also am like, oh I look so much younger, you know, and I go to like crazy places everybody else.
It's really weird to have to watch yourself be a human on film.
Oh my god.
Mostly they're just in our bodies looking out. So it happened to look at yourself all the time. It's weird. It's a weird experience.
It's a weird experience, and it can really mess you up. So I try not to do that. But or we started the series that L was at the series, I thought, well, just go back because I'd like to see like what I did back then, because I don't remember it was fifteen, I'd like to see. So I watched Elsa's first appearance and it was fascint. First of all, it was like, I know what, I know, you must relate to this. It's like watching somebody else.
Yeah, it's like it's almost like watching your sister. Yeah yeah, yeah, they look like you. Yeah, they look like you were familiar, but also like a stranger, like a stranger.
Yeah, it's like revisiting this person that you used to be. Yeah. Or it's like maybe she was like my child or something. There was something I felt very I felt very maternal towards her, you know, like this, but I could tell that I was, you know, I was finding my way. I mean, this was like a guest spot, you know, so, and you're there. When you're a guest spot, which I've done so very many of it in my career. You're there to serve.
Oh yeah, you're.
There to serve what they need to do, to be a support to those other actors. And I love I love that. But there's a lot of pressure too, because you can't go in there and start like messing or it. You know, they they've hired you. They've hired you to be the pinch hitter to come in, do you know, do the same, because we don't have time. We've got to get this thing done. But I knew sit on the page there was something that was a sparkle to this character that I knew they wanted me to do something different. And then fifteen years ago, Robert King said to me, we're thinking about her like a female Columbo. And I said, oh, okay, I think I know what that means. That they want her to be unexpected unconventional. Oh, I want her to be somebody that the audience and then the people around her don't seek coming. So I just thought, let me pick that out. And you can see that I was tentatively doing it. But it was there, you know, the the kind of odd way in which she thinks and stuff. It was there, but I wasn't really letting the full freak flag flaw yet because I didn't know if it was okay to do that, you know, right, And so I did a couple of episodes at the end of season one, and then I didn't hear anything for an entire season. So I thought I blew it. I thought I didn't do enough or I did too much for something, so I let it go, said goodbye. I was like, oh, well, I did it. I did it. It was fun. People seem to like it, but you know, that's it. And then they caught me back in season three and they were like, okay, we have a whole like her.
Wow.
And then I was able to go, oh, okay. And then I worked with the director and the show, you know, I worked with them and and they they kind of pushed me, you know, to to go further with what I was starting to do.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because as someone who's observing, you know, from the outside into your world, I see that there's so much wonderful praise for your depiction of this character that people feel really seen and really represented, and they talk about how she is a really positive example of neurodivergence and brilliance, and folks talk about, you know, she's got traits of ADHD and I'm like, thank you for putting us on TV too, you know, traits that could be identified as being on the autism spectrum? Are those things that you have studied and consciously thought about, you know, do you get into a Colombo esque character with obsession for detail and pattern recognition and things that we now know are often signs of that sort of like neurodivergence, sparkliness. Did they come naturally because of something like you said that was on the page and then you started to realize what you were representing or is it kind of a mixed bag of all of it.
Well, I'm very careful and the writers and everyone on the show is are very careful to never diagnose Yes. I find that that would then become a definitive and then I would have to represent Zach thing and then I would ultimately and we would ultimately not live up to that because everybody is different. What I find really fascinating about playing her is that, and what people seem to respond to is that she is decidedly that who she is, and it's a unique and singular just like anybody who's on what the spectrum of humanity. And you know what I mean. And so I've honored you know that I'm given that responsibility but also that gift and of playing somebody that has that kind of mind that is so unique, that is ingenious, and that also tender, vulnerable mind and and smart and extremely capable. So what I love about it is that I feel like it's it's a story about a unique person who is entrusted with a great amount of responsibility. But it's also about a woman who's of a certain age who is reinventing herself. Yeah, he isn't settled into who. She's trying to improve herself. She's trying to change things that she's done in the past. Yeah, you know.
To love that path, the journey of self discovery, of learning self inventory. What I love about what you're saying is it's it's so universal. And then I imagine in a way, because you can see, you see who she is, you have a representation to how her brain works in its own way. But I think the sort of ingenious thing about not to your point deciding on any specific term or specific diagnosis, is that by being in that spectrum, so many people get to see themselves in you on screen. You know, in a way, being so incredibly specific about who Elsbeth is allows you to be universal for so many people.
And I think you just put your finger on I think just acting, you know, and onsibilities as actors is as specific as possible, so that, yeah, it has become something that everyone can find a way into.
Yeah, I think it's a good.
Actor because you understand that.
Oh that's so kind coming from you. I think about the women that you've built this world with as well. I mean, talk about the three of you, incredible actors. You Juliana Marghlis, the iconic Christine Baranski. I once was at some event with her and she like walked by and I heard myself and I know she heard me. I went oh, and I was like, oh, don't be the weirdo who like gasps, because you see this amazing woman. And and I think about these shows, you know, three of these shows that have built out this world and your your your creators. You've mentioned them, Robert and Michelle. Oh are they just the coolest people to work with?
It?
I feel as a viewer like they really love and respect women and our intellect, not just our capabilities as you know, mothers or leaders or whatever, but but our prowess.
Is it just.
What's your sort of experience like on that side? You know, how do you all work as a team, How do you figure out what you want the show to look like and feel like? Or have you just been doing it together for so long now that it's almost second nature?
Yeah? I mean, well, the thing about Robert and Michelle King is they are incredibly strong leaders. And part of that leadership is that they empower all of their team. So, and I know this because I've also worked with them as a director, because I've directed some I directed some episodes of The Good Fight, and so I got to be a part of, you know, the prep, which is where you really see how how the people who are in charge of the show convey what it is that they need uh director to do. And so I also feel like they they build like a real ensemble of actors that they keep going back to and they enjoy working with, Like they find the people that they that speak the same language as them, and then they continue to employ them. When I when we went into Elsbeth uh and this show got picked up to series, you know, one of the first thing I did was I texted Christine Baranski and I texted Julianna Margalliz, and I thanked them because I wouldn't be here without them, and that I felt this great responsibility and privilege of kind of picking up the baton and carrying it forward. Robert and Michelle did the same thing with one of their former writers who had been with them, Jonathan Tolans. They passed the baton to him. And John Plans is our showrunner, so their exec producer runs our show, He runs our writers room. He's the one who has really created this world. He took what Robert and Michelle did with the pilot, honored it, and then they gave him the power to really shape it into his show. They're they're involved, of course, but John is is our is our guy I call when he comes to set, I call him Daddy.
I'm him.
He's very receptive to any input that I need to have, which is pretty I don't really have that much that I need to say because the writing is so great and I do so so great about it. But if I have a question, very receptive. So there is, you know, this sense of not controlling but leading.
Yeah, gosh, that's beautiful. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too. It must just be the kind of place that constantly makes you feel like you get to grow. I mean, I think about you know, even as you said, you know you're I can't believe you're fifty eight. That's I mean, I'm like, what, But you know, you talk about your early career and everyone's looking for the next entrenou and it is really profound two at least for me as a viewer, and I would imagine for you as an actor to continue the fact that you're continuing to build your own world, you know, in a in an industry where we've all been told, well, once you're forty, you'll never work again, and it's like, I'm.
Gonna work forever, and look at you.
You're building this space and this show is so wonderful, and the reception to it is so wonderful. And you know, you get to work with people that you love, you get to be partners with Jonathan, you know.
Your husband came and guest starred on your show.
It's like, you look like you're having a really good time.
I am. I'm having the time of my life. I am. And when I'm not, you know, because it's hard. The schedules, you do, know what I mean.
Tough.
You know, it's a tough schedule. Like you know, we're doing those episodes in eight or nine days, and I'm in pretty much every you know scene. So it's it's I don't have very much. And whenever I'm not on, whenever I'm not saying words, I'm learning other words. And so it's you know, it's there's a lot of juggling. But I'm like, I've always been a multitasker. I mean, I think one thing that Elsbetasioni and I have in common is that we both are pretty good at multitasking. Yeah, I love that, so I can bring that, you know, to the character and stuff. But I am having the time of my life because that it has come at this time. I mean, I said, I was fifty eight, I will be at fifty eight and two months, but I feel like I'm already fifty eight. Fifty seven will be fifty eight and two months. But but yeah, so I feel like, you know, it's not I don't want to waste a moment. You know, well, you're you're on fire, although as long as they'll let me do it, I'm you don't want to do it.
Does this experience at this stage because to your point, you know, you've you've been a working actor for a long time, You've got an incredible career. But does this moment you know, the tough of the schedule, sure, but also the excitement to be doing it and you so clearly love the work, the writing, all of it. Does it shift your perspective on your own midlife? Does it kind of reconstitute for you what longevity means? Feels like, looks.
Like, yeah, yeah, it really does. I mean sometimes I have these thoughts of like why did I give this? Did somebody give me this responsibility? When I was like in my you know, where it was, I had this endless amount of energy, and I thought, well, because that wasn't the time, like you know, and it wasn't lined up. It wasn't lined up. When I was doing shows in my thirties, they were all like, all the leads were like dudes, you know, so you know what I mean. It was just like, yeah, it had to be now, It had to be time when you know, I was going to be the show that comes on after Kathy Bates. Yeah, you know, like it just sort of needed to be that, and maybe I needed to have a little bit more of it. Maybe I needed to be a little more seasoned to bring you know, some of the I don't know, just some of what it is to be at this at this late in my late fifties and doing this. You know, it's a different person than was back then. And I also but.
It's just tremendously interesting.
Sting to cut you off there, but I'm like, wait, it's so cool. Yeah, I know. I feel that I feel that way, and I feel I feel a responsibility to represent a woman of that age who's not attached to a man, who's not a who's not about, you know, beauty on the outside as much as she is about beauty in the brain and and love and joy and positivity and overcoming things and beyond things and just all She's infectious. It infects me, yeah, play.
And everything about her, you know, from the way her brain works to even the way she moves through the world. I mean, I'm obsessed with her obsession with tote bags.
You know, it's such a fun little quirk.
It's a detail that is fun for me as an actor to think about you coming up with and I you know, I love having like the big, motivational, artistic conversation, and then part of me is so curious, like, what do you think is the weirdest thing in her bag?
Well, we did a whole episode where we had a con Mari type person played by the brilliant Mary Luise Parker, who I'm obsessed with icon icon I mean the icons that I've gotten to work with on this show Yond Beyond. But anyway, she makes me go through my toes and I was very worried. I even said to John Tolanz, I was like, I called him. I don't usually do that, but I called him and said, I am worried. I don't know if we want to open up the mystery bag. Don't you think it's more interesting curious about what's in the bag than showing showing what's you know, because it's sort of like, we don't want to talk too much about her brain because it's more interesting and surprising to just watch her do her thing. And he assured me that, you know, that we would do it in a way that was responsible, and I was, and I, you know, I said, well, we need to at least talk about her emotional connection to it. That it's not just just carrying much of random things around. There's a really carrying them around. And I always think about it in terms of it's like a security blanket, or it's something that you know, makes her feel confident, armored. It's like armored she's bringing out into the world. And that just means that there are a lot of things in there that you think she said you might need. That could be a sandwich because she's hungry later, and some string cheese, but also you know some uh you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica and Atticus, like just whatever it is that she thinks she might need to help unlock something, you know, And so I think about it that way. And then, and I've talked about this before, I made the decision pretty early on that when Elspeth shows up to solve the crime, to make the arrest. She doesn't have the bags because she is an.
She's not in the process of solving.
Right. I love, she's an encumbered and she's you know, stands in her own you know, confidence and truth in that moment.
That's very very cool. That's very cool. Are there other things you've found her through in terms of decision making? Like do you know what her favorite cocktail is? Does she have a favorite snack? Is there is there like a must have wardrobe item for her that goes along with her toolkit in her bags? You know, what are some of the things you've selected for her that we might know or that we might not.
Yeah, I mean well, first of all, I there we have the most genius costume designer working in the business, Daniel lot awesome, who's costumed good Wife, Good Fight Elsbeth like the through line, the character doesn't exist without him. I go up and stand there like a paper doll, and he hands me the character. Yes, so I totally completely trust him. Our fittings are epic. The closet that he builds for me is it takes like the almost half of the whole. You know, thousands of clothes and they're just so so delightful and so specific. Started coming up with this idea that because Elizabeth has moved to New York and she's such a tourist and she loves New York so much. Yeah, wherever she goes in, whatever crime in the world of the crime that she goes into, she gets a little something from it. Yeah, you know what I mean. So we find like tope bags from the little We had an episode about tennis, so I have like a little brooch sometimes that I wear these tennis reckets and then the like towards the end of the season, Dan came in and he was like, don't you think Elsbeth is probably playing pickleball by now? I mean, I would have never thought of that, but I'm like, of course she's playing kickballs because everyone's playing pickleball, and I'm sure she's satelite, but she's going to go in there and try to do it. So he had this little roaches that was pickleball, a little pickleball how and we just put that on. So he I work so closely with the costume department and with him. You know, I'll come, I'll find some some knitted thing and I'll say, don't you think that she needs to be wearing this? And we will put that in there, or you know, a certain boat or whatever. And so we we find those little details together as far as like way way earlier on and good Wife Elisath said, you don't want to see me drunk. You don't want to see me drinking. I'm I'm so she doesn't drink, so it's right, but she but she loves Shirley Temples. So the prop department what they will do with a Shirley Temple for me, Like we will show up and they'll say, see, there's a place for you to have a Shirley Temple if we've do like a scene in a restaurant or a bar. And so we did this. We did this episode that was set in a restaurant. It was about a chef played by the again another person I worship, Pamela Adlin played a chef brilliant and we're in this like super high end restaurant and they had, you know, Shirley temple, and I was like, no, let's put it in the tiniest little glass because all the food is tiny, yes, tiny Shirley Temple. And then I'm gonna try to drink it. Yes, So they put it there and I was like, they're going to cut this, but I did this whole lotsy with this whole bit, with the trying to drink the thing, with the thing and the little umbrella and stuff, and just like having the hardest time with it, and thankfully they kept it in the cut. They fighting a lot of my little I call them El's bits, caught the l's bits because you know, they have to time and plot and story. But when they keep my little, my little moments in, I'm always very vitorius, so much fun.
And you know, it isn't lost on me that you, with this platform that you've built, you've you know, not only leaned into such great content, but you use your platform for advocacy. You know, you support LGBTQ rights with glad, you work with Michael Fox Foundation and support folks battling Parkinson's. You know, how how do you decide what you're going to lend your time to and and and how you're going to show.
Up Like, yeah, I can think it's just you know, being raised by my parents were very much about you know, supporting acceptance, love and uh and and advocating for people who maybe don't have a voice, or people who disenfranchised, and you know, early early on, like in college and stuff. I always feel feel like I still am feel like even I'm married to a man, I'm very much part of the queer community. So I feel like I want to bring a voice to them, and especially now when their voices are being taken away. Early on in my career, when I started directing, I started making movies and projects for the LGBTQ audience. Twenty five years ago, there wasn't as much content and so and I wanted my my producing partners, and I wanted to make, you know, projects that were less about uh maybe romantic relationships and more about you know, coming coming of age. Or we made a movie called Ready Okay about a little boy who wants to be a cheerleader and just mother and how she's struggling with her kid being different. And so, you know, making something that you could show at a p FLAG meeting, you know, something that you could take your parents to and go, this is this is this is what I'm going through Your ways to do that and tell stories that way. I do believe that stories have the power to change the world and so we as artists are responsible for changing the world a lot of the time. And so I feel, you know a lot of privilege and responsibility in telling those stories and bringing them to light. And then also, you know, my father passed away from complications from parkinson So watchould and go through that for twenty years. One of my best best friends has partners is my you know, a cousin mine has part like it's there are a lot of people we have Parkinson's in this world and they're making great strides. Michael J. Fox. I remember I did an episode to Spend City way back, got to you know, meet Michael J. Fox and when he was first starting to deal with Pardinson's and just being so impressed with how he was using his platform, and it said his organized organization has made Yeah, it's just so important to keep an eye on that so that we as you know, as as the as the audience and we as fellow humans can continue to support that and bring you know, a light to that so that it continues to grow.
And yeah, it's beautiful. And I think when you get to harness you know, the attention that your job comes with, and help make sure you can transmute that toward other folks who needed. It's such a it's such a gift that comes with all the other crazy stuff that you know, we do and deal with. And yeah, it's always really exciting for me to to see the things that people are so passionate about.
Yeah, I know, I know, and I do it in a quieter way, I think, maybe than some people would wish. But I just feel like I want to be you know, I want to just do the work and be authentic to to the to the activism. Also being you know myself, which is somebody who is just a loving and you know, joyful person you know out in the world as well, you know, somebody who's appreciative, appreciative of of the place that I'm you know, a privileged to be in as well.
I think that's great. And now a word from our sponsors. When you sit and you think about you know, continuing this show you love, uh, being in this place in your life that you love and you know what comes next? What what feels like You're work in progress now?
I mean, I'm constantly trying to do this. Do it a spiritual work, you know. I mean, I like my parents, we weren't. We weren't religious per se, but we were very and you know, my parents were always you know, my parents had a commune at one point. You know, we were very like trying to find an alternative way of thinking love that been interested in mindfulness, practice Buddhism, you know, uh meditation. And it took me a long time to get to a place where I had like a daily practice because I'm a hummingbird.
Really hard to like subtle, I feel that.
H And so that's my work, is that I'm constantly trying to ground down into uh mindfulness and finding compassion and empathy for myself and for and that's sort of my daily I just started at what I'm calling a grat text thread with my closest some of my day ones, my wride dies, girlfriends, and you know, we're just every day we grat text and it's just got to do just three things, just three things you're grateful for. And it really does open up a conversation and open up a way of looking at your life. And I'm looking at the world and trying to be aware of constantly aware of you know, not everybody has the privileges that I have. And you know, figuring out a way to harness that empathy and compassion for the good.
Yeah, that's beautiful because you're you know, you're talking about the things out there and the things in here, and I think it's special to try to hold all that space. It's special work.
Yeah, it's necessary, I think, especially for where we are in the world right now, which is kind of divided. And yeah, yeah, well I.
So appreciate it. I mean, I'm I'm so inspired by you as an artist and it's a real treat to get to sit and just be inspired by you as a human. We all love the show. Thank you for all that hard work and all those crazy hours. You really you bring us all a lot of joy.
Thank you, Thank you, and thanks for having thanks for such a lad nurturing the conversation.
Thank you, Thank you for joining us. It means a lot
