Carrie Preston calls her role in “Elsbeth” the “main course, not the side dish.”
On “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” she ambled into cases as a quirky lawyer, the spice episodes needed to escape some of the heavy-hitting drama.
Now, in her third series, she’s the attorney helping solve mysteries in New York. “She’s a bit of a fish out of water,” Preston says of Elsbeth Tascioni. “She’s very confident in the legal world, but finding her way in this new world. It’s lighter, it’s comedic in nature…and not (about) politics.”
Like “Columbo,” a series with which it has much in common, “Elsbeth” starts with an incident then brings law enforcement and the lawyer into the case. The audience knows who’s guilty. It's just a matter of baiting the trap.
For an introductory episode in February, Preston’s “True Blood” co-star Stephen Moyer starred as the key suspect.
“Having him on set during the pilot was such a comfort to me because the stakes are really high and I wanted the show to be amazing,” Preston says. “This is a very dialogue-heavy show and I wanted somebody who could do that kind of scene work, somebody who understood that and that’s Stephen times one billion.”
From left, Wendell Pierce as Captain C.W. Wagner, Carra Patterson as Officer Kaya Blanke, Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni.
Other guest stars (Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jane Krakowski, Linda Lavin and Blair Underwood) will appear throughout the course of the series.
Robert and Michelle King, the show’s creators, say they were inspired to give Tascioni the spotlight after watching countless episodes of “Columbo” during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s not about ‘whodunnit’ in that Agatha Christie way,” says Robert King. “It’s a ‘howdunnit,' which seems just as fascinating because it takes a wittier approach to puzzle solving or problem solving. The audience knows where this is headed and you can see the bad guy reverse and try to get back at Carrie Preston’s character before she can solve it.”
Writer/producer Jonathan Tolins calls it a “wonderful puzzle. That’s why shows like this are so fun to watch.”
Because she’s alone, Elsbeth has to find others she can trust and share information. Carra Patterson’s Kaya Blanke seems a likely confidante. “She’s a very dedicated, by-the-book NYPD officer,” Patterson says. “She realizes that Elsbeth sees something in her and she respects that.”
Carrie Preston stars in "Elsbeth," a CBS series that takes her character from "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" and moves her to New York City.
Also in the mix: Wendell Pierce as the captain. “As their relationship evolves, that kind of softens my edges and eases my concerns about who this woman is investigating my department,” he explains. “I see the brilliance in her and I love that epiphany.”
To prep for the new series, Patterson watched all of the “Good Wife” and “Good Fight” episodes that featured Elspeth. A son was mentioned in the first episode “and we did the math,” Patterson says. “Teddy is in his 20s.” And, yes, Tolins says, he and his relationship with his mother will be referenced.
“You get into the vibe of these characters and let the show lead you,” Tolins says.
While the previous series didn’t require lots of preparation, “Elsbeth” does, Preston says. “This is a brilliant woman who is so mercurial, so fast, she’s like quicksilver. She can be saying one thing, thinking another and her body is doing a third thing, so that is really fun to navigate.”
“Elsbeth” returns in April and airs on CBS.
Carrie Preston and Wendell Pierce keep each other at arm's length in "Elsbeth."
