The CBS series Elsbeth is back for Season 2 with consent decree attorney Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston), a character previously featured in The Good Wife and The Good Fight, helping to catch all sorts of murderers around New York. Her goodness is infectious to all those around her, including her boss Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) and detective-in-training Officer Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson), and her unique point of view helps to close cases. In fact, once her curiosity is pointed in your direction, you’re just not going to get away with whatever it is you did.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Preston and Pierce talked about enjoying the dynamic between their characters, their growing friendship offscreen, getting to learn more about their backstories, continuing to bring the fun and funny to a show that starts each week with a murder, whether Elsbeth is aware of the affect she has on people, and navigating their continuing evolution at work.
‘Elsbeth’s Carrie Preston and Wendell Pierce Share a Mutual Respect for Each Other
Collider: Wendell, when your character told Elsbeth that he was going to have her office packed up for her, at the end of Season 1, I was so sad about that. I also loved how it came full circle and that he was the one that presented her with her new space. How did you guys feel about that moment?
WENDELL PIERCE: It’s the push and pull of it, and the conflict within him, wanting to control everything, but at the same time, he has to realize the reality of how good she is. She’s really good, and he hates it. The thing that I love is the fact that we captured the conflict of the smile at the end of the season. I cannot tell you how many people were like, “Man, I was so happy when you came into the fashion show and smiled.” I was like, “Really?” And they were like, “Yeah!” You forget, as you do it, or at least I do because I’m really bad at that. And then, I realized that was getting a reaction from people. It gives you something to play, as we go forward, when figuring out how we’re gonna navigate this new relationship. I go back and forth about whether I should have helped her and kept her here, but she’s really good. It’s a great place to be. It gives us something to play, which is wonderful.
CARRIE PRESTON: Exactly. They have this mutual respect for each other, but that was thrown into doubt when he started realizing what she’s really there for. And then, she’s trying to make her argument to defend herself by going, “This was my job. I was doing the best that I could.” Playing those tense scenes with Wendell is difficult to go through, of course, because it’s a painful thing to do. But also, this is what we love as actors, having juicy scenes like this to play. We just would dig in deeper and deeper and deeper.
PIERCE: And she made great points, too.
PRESTON: Yeah, the writing was so good for us because we were both making really good arguments. Has that trust been eroded or not? We had this reparation at the end. One of my favorite things that we shot last season was me walking down the runway and looking up and seeing Wendell. Yes, it was Elsbeth seeing Captain Wagner, but it was Carrie seeing Wendell. After what we had just gone through on our first season of the TV show, him showing up and supporting me, all those lines got blurred in the best way, to capture that moment. We didn’t even have to do very many takes. It was just right there. Everybody was like, “Okay, that’s it.”
That moment with him smiling, when he didn’t have to do that, was particularly interesting because it made us feel like there’s more to him that we don’t know yet.
PIECE: Absolutely. We see the veil lifted every once in a while, when you see him at home and having conversations with his wife. It’s also the demeanor that police officers, in particular, and people in leadership positions put on like, “I’m gonna go by the book and try to keep my personal feelings out of it,” but it’s impossible to do that. And so, I love the fact that you saw the veneer lifted for a moment. That gives us room to play and it gives me an idea of when the veneer is lifted and when the veneer is on. It gives me a landscape to play with, as we go forward.
Because we know Elsbeth as a character, we know to expect the unexpected with her. But with Captain Wagner, we’re not sure who he really is under those layers. Will we understand him better in Season 2?
PIERCE: Absolutely. There’s a history that we both have, and all the characters have, that will be revealed, more and more. That’s the great thing about doing serial television, you get to build characters and reveal different aspects of their personalities. I look forward to that.
Carrie Preston Is Still Learning New Things About Elsbeth After All These Years of Playing the Character
Before now, we haven’t gotten to spend this much time with Elsbeth. What are you enjoying exploring that you hadn’t before?
PRESTON: A lot about her history. She’d only mentioned Teddy, her son, once, and not even by name, the first time Elsbeth ever appeared 14 years ago, and then that was gone. Now, we’re really learning a lot about that relationship and that informs so much of what the audience then learns about the character. When you picture Elsbeth as a mother, what is that? Clearly, there was some complicated stuff, but there’s so much love. They wrote in some wonderful stuff about how I protected him from being bullied and that he’s gay. There’s just a lot of rich things to mine there that I never had the benefit of knowing before because I would usually just show up to do whatever the case was. So, that’s been great. And also, just seeing her in relationships with people that are now ongoing, every day. When I would appear before, it would just be these brief little encounters that we would have. Having the longevity now, of a whole season, I’m learning what Elsbeth is like in relationships. These things are fun and exciting to play, but also informative. It allows me to just relax into that character a little more
