The Good Wife cast and crew interview

15 January 2014

An interview with star of The Good Wife, Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick) and Co-Creators / Executive Producers, Robert and Michelle King.

(The interview is available for reproduction in full or in part)

 

JULIANNA MARGULIES – Alicia Florrick

 1. How does it feel to be on Season 5 of The Good Wife?

 Julianna Margulies: It doesn’t feel like the fifth season. I have more excitement about this season than I have any season. The first season I was so overwhelmed by it all and the second season you’re trying to keep the momentum going, and then all of a sudden you’re in year five and the writing is even better. I feel like I just landed in a pot of gold.

 2. What was your reaction to the Season 4 finale?

 Julianna Margulies: When I read the script of the season finale I was like, oh, we’re still doing this triangle and then all of a sudden you realize how smart they are, these writers are just so smart.

 3. How does the Season 4 finale set the stage for Season 5?

 Julianna Margulies: Basically what happens is Alicia chooses to leave her firm because she knows as long as she is there, her heart will always be with Will and she can’t live like that - not after recommitting to her husband. And she starts her own firm or talks about starting her own firm with Cary.

 4. More on setting the stage for Season 5?

 Julianna Margulies: It picks up on the exact same night. We open up the episode and you see Alicia and Cary on their second bottle of wine - in her kitchen, getting a little drunk and realizing this could be the best thing that’s ever happened.

 5. Are Alicia and Cary the new Will and Diane?

Julianna Margulies: Cary sells it to her by saying we’re the new Will and Diane. She starts watching how Will and Diane work because when Season 5 starts they’re still there, they have to transition, they have to get offices, they have to figure this all out before they abandon and she’s watching Will and Diane work on a death row case with her and then she’s watching how Cary conducts himself and she is realizing this ain’t no Will and Diane.

6. What challenges does Alicia face at the start of Season 5?

Julianna Margulies: Her husband is elected governor, so she is now the first lady, and is going to figure out how to leave the firm. They have to steal some clients, it’s ugly and it gets really ugly, and it’s going to be a very tense season because of it.

7. Are there advantages to being the Governor’s wife?

Julianna Margulies: Being the governor’s wife gives her tremendous status as a lawyer and it has completely opened the door for her. It made her partner at Lockhart & Gardner. They could have chosen anyone, however she was much more valuable to them as the governor’s wife.

8. What damage will Alicia’s new firm create for Will and Diane?

Julianna Margulies: The three biggest clients that she is taking with her are a blow to Lockhart & Gardner. She takes Chumhum, the drug kingpin Lemond Bishop and Sweeney. That’s at least $44 million a year in business for Lockhart & Gardner. So it’s not just that she is leaving the firm to start her own, she is stabbing them in the back and, even though I truly believe that Alicia doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, it’s the cruellest thing she could ever do to two people who were there for her when she had no-one.

9. More on the damage Alicia’s new firm creates…

Julianna Margulies: It’s a bloodbath. If we were Game of Thrones, there would be a lot of actual blood, but because we’re lawyers in pretty clothing, there are just a lot of really smart words and emotions.

10. How will Alicia’s move affect her relationship with Diane?

Julianna Margulies: It’s going to get horribly tense and it’s going to be pretty devastating, but then, and I can’t express it because it will ruin it for everybody - in fact no-one on the show knows except for me and the Kings, Brooke Kennedy and David Zucker - but we take a very big turn and through an event that happens Diane and Alicia are brought closer. This is what I’ve always wanted because they’re two such strong women that women connect to, and I hated that the two strong women on the show weren’t friends.

11. Why is Alicia’s relationship with Eli important?

Julianna Margulies: The only people that know about Alicia and Will are Eli Gold and Diane. Then Eli becomes Chief of Staff of the governor’s office and as he knows all my secrets, it elevates their friendship as well. I think it’s going to be pretty beautiful and pretty devastating.

12. How does it feel to reach 100 episodes in Season 5?

Julianna Margulies: It’s a milestone to shoot that many episodes and I remember the feeling on ER thinking a 100 episodes, that’s crazy. We’re talking 84-page scripts, so if you look at a feature length film, they’re usually about 125 to 130 pages, and we shoot that amount in eight days -and it’s quality writing and work. It’s definitely something to be proud of and I’m over the moon that we’ve made it this far. I think that audiences really have responded in an incredibly positive way to the show and I do think it’s just getting better and better.

 

ROBERT and MICHELLE KING – Co-Creators / Executive Producers

1. How does it feel to be on Season 5 of “The Good Wife”?

Michelle King: It’s tremendous. We’re coming up on our 100th episode. It’s really exciting for us.

Robert King: And exhausting. We end the year very tired and ready to collapse and then start reading the news and go ‘that’s interesting, this is fun, Anthony Weiner, really?’ So, all this starts to get you excited about going the year again.

2. How does the Season 4 finale set the stage for Season 5?

Sometimes it’s great to swerve left and then you swerve right, but I thought thematically it worked for us, in that you thought it was going to romance when in fact it was going to career-end romance. That sets up the next year, as we get to see how Alicia and Cary follow through. If they’re going to start a firm together, what is that going to look like - and they’re going to start the year saying it’s going to be the most ethical firm - and how are they going to be able to follow through? What will that do to Alicia and Will, especially if they take clients along with them? If you’re stealing money from the other firm, which is the way Will and Diane might interpret it, it’s not going to end well. The year for us is about civil war through seeing these characters we’ve embraced in a family and the wedge go in the middle of the family - and how will that renew itself or will it ever?

3. More on setting the stage for Season 5

Michelle King: I feel like we set ourselves up very nicely at the end of Season 4 so I am really excited with the stories we get to tell in Season 5.

Robert King: There is a certain inevitability from the way we left it in Season 4. I would say each year we start with this real excitement and fever pitch to do well, except you have to stretch it out over a marathon and not over a sprint. There can’t be just one burst of energy. There has to be this constant renewal and burst of energy.

4. How has Alicia’s attitude towards Cary changed since Season 1?

Robert King: Julianna’s character over the years has grown respect for Cary, because he wasn’t the yuppie suburban boy that you expect. He has gone through a lot of turmoil. He was fired. He went to the state’s attorney’s office then he came back. He was overlooked for partner, so I think Jules’ character has a real respect for how he keeps bouncing back and that is different from the very first year where everybody thought he was the cliché.

5. How have the fans reacted to the direction the show has taken in Season 5?

Michelle King: What has been nice with the fan reaction is people seem very genuinely excited to see what’s going to happen next professionally with Alicia. With these two firms splitting and starting up I think people see the possibilities and are excited about it.

6. More on fan reaction…

Robert King: I think fans embrace anything new - seeing new versions of relationships, different ways to click people together - and so it’s fun to see Alicia and Cary try to be the new Will and Diane. Everybody knows what that means, all the fans know what that means, and are they going to be up to it.

7. What challenges will Peter and Alicia face going into Season 5?

The bottom line is Alicia and Peter have agreed to recommit to each other and that played into Alicia wanting to move away from Will. The difficulty is that Peter now has moved into a position of power in the governorship and as much as he has sworn over the years to be a changed man, now the test is really going to be put to a test because our theory is that the closer men get to power - and women probably too - the more it becomes that Henry Kissinger like aphrodisiac to women. He is also tempted by using his power as we saw with Anthony Weiner. Power comes with some sense of sexual loosening, so that’s difficult for Alicia and Peter -  it’s not that Peter necessarily even acts on it - but that kind of divide in the marriage is difficult and it’s happening at a time when Alicia is feeling her own roots in a way. She has got her own firm, she’s got power, and she may not need Peter as much anymore, so that is a tension in that relationship.

8. Can we expect more big name guest stars in Season 5?

Robert King: It’s still early days but there are people – we’re building a little further ahead so we know Carrie Preston is coming back - she is lovely as Elsbeth Tascioni, and was nominated for an Emmy. We know that Gary Cole is coming back. He plays Kurt McVeigh who is in this relationship with Diane. We know America Ferrera is coming back. She was with us the second year and she has this odd relationship with Eli Gold. Melissa George who is this wonderful actress who is the Ethics Committee Commissioner in the governorship and causes Peter many problems and…

Michelle King: Jeffrey Tambor.

Robert King: Jeffrey Tambor who plays a judge on Arrested Development and Larry Sanders Show. He plays a judge in two of our episodes and is going to cause troubles for Alicia in the future, and then there is Juliet Rylance who plays the romantic interest to Kalinda and we couldn’t be more excited. I mean, there is an intent on our part to focus on our cast - the civil war going on in our cast - but it’s always wonderful to get these people back.

9. What are your plans for the 100th episode of “The Good Wife”?

Robert King: We are intending for it to be a blowout episode. We want the 100th episode to be one of the best we’ve written, but we don’t know what we’re doing yet. There is a movie called Drowning By Numbers that had a countdown in the movie from a 100 to 0. We were thinking about that but then our shows rely on the ability to edit out scenes that aren’t quite working, so you’d throw it off. I think it will come down to a real turning point in Julianna’s life and a case that just blows everybody away.