CBSIt's not every day you get to see an Emmy winner have a run-in with an anti-Semitic man dressed as a stuffed bear, but that happens on The Good Wife on Sunday, March 16. Carrie Preston returns as Elsbeth Tascioni in "A Few Words," and she has quite the unexpected encounter.
"I cannot believe they kept that. I really am so surprised," Preston tells us. "When I read it on the page, I thought, ‘Okay, that's going to get cut.' Then we got on set, and we were doing it, and I said, ‘Are you sure they're not going to cut it?" And they're like, ‘No, they're not going to cut it.' So we did it, and I thought, ‘Ok, they're going to cut it once it goes to air.' So I'm happy to hear they didn't."
Preston's Elsbeth runs into her old friends at Lockhart/Gardner during an American Bar Association conference in New York City. E! News caught up with the Emmy winner to discuss her triumphant return to the CBS drama.
What's better for comedy: A treadmill desk or anti-Semitic costumed men?
Treadmill desk, for sure.
Was it weird to film in Times Square as a New Yorker?
Yes it was, because you know, it's not like you can close down Times Square, so there were tourists coming through the shots. They were kind of able to block off one little area in front of the store where we were with the bear, and they had a few background players there, but everybody else was just tourists, so they were stopping and coming into shots and wanting to take our pictures, and we just kept rolling with it. It was a particularly beautiful day, although it was freezing. It was at least lovely, so it was very exciting to look down and see, you know, the back of my neighborhood, and here I am shooting this wonderful TV show in the middle of my neighborhood with all these tourists around. It was pretty fun though. Josh [Charles] and I kept going in the stores and stuff to keep warm, so we got very familiar with the…I think it's the Verizon store there, or AT&T or something.
Had you ever personally had an encounter with those costumed people in Times Square? They can be quite pushy.
You know, they're there to make a buck. They want to take photos and charge people for them, and that's their job. But I mean when you're a New Yorker, you understand how to navigate those situations. You walk out into the street to avoid that kind of thing. You keep your head down and your eyes forward, and make a beeline to your destination, so I never had any run-ins with them, but I thought it was pretty hilarious that they would think to put something like that in there, and that they've got this running gag that Elsbeth is obsessed with bears, which is so funny to me.
In the episode, Elsbeth's Kalinda obsession returns. Have you ever talked to Archie Panjabi about it?
No, not really, no. You know Archie's just so subtle that you never really know what her character's thinking, and I like that, because it just gives me so much more to play off of. I think that's what fascinates Elsbeth also.
We haven't actually seen Elsbeth deal with the split between Alicia and Lockhart/Gardner. If she needed help, would she call Will or would she call Alicia?
Right. I don't really know. I mean I would think that she would call Alicia, but I could see how she could call Will too. I mean, you know, she's going to call whoever it is that she feels like is going to win the case. She might not show it, but she's extremely competitive, and so depending on the case and what the case calls for, she would go to whoever she thought would be able to win it. I don't think she would pick over likability.
Are you Team Peter or Team Will for Alicia?
Hmm, I'm always a little partial to Will, yeah. I think I'm partial to Will. But at the same time I believe in marriage, and I don't want that to happen either. It's hard, it's hard to pick. It's always nice to see that triangle, and it's played out really well in the show. They keep it in a good balance; they keep it in a really nice balance with all the other stuff too.
Is there a Good Wife guest star you'd like to work with?
It would be really fun to see her square off with Michael J. Fox's character or Wallace Shawn's character. It would be a really interesting square-off of personalities and skills.
Touching on The Following a bit, was it hard to watch yourself die?
Yes! It was very disturbing, mostly because when we were shooting it, she only stabbed me once, but they do it from so many different angles that the way they cut it, it made it look like she stabbed me like 10 times or something, so I wasn't expecting that when I watched it. It just looked like she stabbed me over and over again, and they totally did that in editing…My mother was not too fond of that scene. She was very upset watching it. But that's that show though. I mean, if you're going to do that show, you got to expect that something gruesome is going to be happening to you.
We'll have more from Carrie Preston on Sunday, March 16 after her episode of The Good Wife airs.
The Good Wife airs Sundays, 9 p.m. on CBS.