
Julianna Margulies is no stranger to emotional terrain in her roles.
In her Emmy-winning turn as Nurse Carol Hathaway on the long-running medical drama ER, she played a damaged careerist recovering from an unsuccessful suicide attempt. In a recurring role on The Sopranos, she played realtor Julianna Skiff, a recovering alcoholic who develops a potentially fatal attraction to mob boss Tony Soprano.
And now, in The Good Wife, she plays a loyal wife and mother whose life is turned upside down when her politician husband is embroiled in a public sex-and-corruption scandal.
Unlike her other characters, though, her new character Alicia Florrick takes her life and her future into her own hands by leaving her husband — and the financial security that comes with marriage — and starting anew in her original career as a defence lawyer.
It has been 13 years since Florrick last practised law. She has to start all over again, as a junior partner at a prestigious Chicago firm, where she joins her longtime friend and former law-school classmate, Will Gardner, played by Josh Charles.
At the same time she takes charge of her professional destiny, she has to look after a 14-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter from her now-wrecked marriage.
“I love how complicated she is,” Margulies said. “This is a woman who thought her life was going one way for many, many years. She trusted that life and that world she lived in. And then everything crumbles.
“As an actor, I felt there are so many places to go. How do you react when you’re suddenly thrust into that situation? I realize now, speaking for myself, how I was so quick to judge the women I saw standing by their men. In my head, I kept thinking, ‘Why are you standing there?’ Now, I know a little more of the answer.
“I feel these women never get their due. They’re supposed to have the children, support the husband. These are smart women. Silda Spitzer right now is running a hedge fund in New York City. Elizabeth Edwards just wrote a book. Look at Hillary Clinton. It’s not like these are silly little wallflowers that are waiting for their husband to come home. Most of them have two degrees, at least. They’re incredibly accomplished.
“So I found this a fascinating role to play.”
The Good Wife sounds as if it was torn from the summer’s headlines, but that’s not entirely true, according to the show’s co-creator Robert King.
“Michelle (King, his wife) and I started writing The Good Wife a year ago, when you could still hike the Appalachian Trail and not snicker,” King said. “It was right after a flurry of scandals, all of which seemed to follow a predictable trajectory, from the politician’s point of view. Usually, there’s a resignation, and then a period of time when they reflect, and then they try to climb back into the spotlight.
“We were more interested in the wife’s trajectory, because that seems less certain, less predictable and much more interesting. How do you remake your life when everybody has an opinion about how you should remake your life?”
The ‘good’ in The Good Wife is intended to be ironic, King added.
“It was thought to be the good wife to stand by your man when, in fact, as you see in the first episode, Alicia says basically she never thought she’d do that, except that she’s caught unprepared when this happens. I hope that one of the things we’re doing with The Good Wife is exploring why some of these women do stay with their husbands after such a major shock and embarrassment.”
Despite its legal underpinnings, The Good Wife is not a courtroom drama, Margulies insisted.
“I didn’t want to do a legal show. We have great legal shows on the air, already. Why would we want to put another one on? That’s not going to interest me or the audience, I don’t think. What interests me is who these characters are.”
Margulies said she hopes that if viewers take anything from The Good Wife, it’s what she took herself from playing the role.
“This has given me a tremendous amount of respect for these women,” Margulies said. “I was so quick to judge them, until I stood in Alicia’s shoes. We just don’t know what’s going on in the bedroom, or at home. We all assume, when we see the scandal, that he’s a bad man and she’s a good woman. But we don’t know what their deal is at home. We don’t know what they’re going through in their marriage. Most of these scandals happen after years of marriage. We’re all so quick to judge these people without knowing the facts.
“I have had friends whose husbands cheated on them, and they’re still together because they have three children and they saw their fault in it, too. Life shifts and changes, and I think this is a great way to explore human nature.”
The Good Wife debuts Tuesday, Sept. 22 on Global and CBS at 10 ET/PT.