Actress looks forward to peeling back layers of character

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Julianna Margulies portrays Alicia Florrick, a wife and mother who must assume full responsibility for her family and re-enter the workforce. (CBS)

For Julianna Margulies, it was all about the uncertainty, and the fear, and the unknown.

The former ER regular wasn't actively looking to star in another network TV drama, but when she read the pilot script for The Good Wife, she knew she'd found a woman worth becoming.

"I loved how complicated she is," Margulies said when she met the press in August during the U.S. networks' semi-annual press tour in Los Angeles. "This is a woman who's thought her life was going one way for many, many years, and trusted that life and the world that she lived in. And then everything crumbles."

In The Good Wife (Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CBS and Global), Margulies portrays Alicia Florrick, an intelligent and accomplished woman who has long since given up her own career in order to be a stay-at-home mother in support of her husband's political aspirations.

When her husband, Peter (Chris Noth), is caught in a sordid sexual and political-corruption scandal, Alicia's life is turned upside down. When he's jailed for his misdeeds, she is forced to re-enter the workforce, attempting to resume her career as a defence lawyer by starting at the very bottom at a prestigious Chicago law firm.

After 13 years away from the courtroom, she's facing a very difficult uphill battle.

"As an actor, I felt like, there's so many places to go," Margulies explained. "I mean, we're going to be able to peel her like an onion for years to come, because, well, how do you react to something like that?"

Actually, recent events in American politics have given Margulies and her co-workers plenty of examples of how political wives react when their husbands fall victim to their own ambitions and vanities. The actress said taking on this dramatic role actually changed her perception of those real-life women who (in public, at least) have stood by their men.

"I was so quick to judge all those women who I saw standing up and standing by their men," she reflected. "(This role) gave me a tremendous amount of respect for them ... and I feel like these women really don't get their due.

"These are smart women. Silda Spitzer is now heading a hedge fund in New York City. She's never been better. Elizabeth Edwards wrote a book. And look at Hillary Clinton. These are not silly little wallflowers who are waiting for their husbands to come home. They're incredibly accomplished women. So I found this a fascinating role to play."

This isn't Margulies' first attempt at a legal drama; her short run last year as star of the mid-season Fox fill-in Canterbury's Law familiarized her with the genre. But what made her eager to return in another courtroom show so soon after that one failed was the fact that The Good Wife's central character isn't actually a lawyer until circumstances force her to be one.

"It's a great backdrop for her development -- she graduated at the top of her class at Georgetown University 15 years prior to this, but she never got to hone her skills," she said. "I think it's a great way for her to discover who she is as a woman. And it's a man's world. And she's coming out of this cocoon."

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV WORTH WATCHING

Saving Grace (Tonight at 1 a.m., Showcase) -- Holly Hunter returns for a third season as conflicted and addicted cop Grace Hanadarko, who's struggling with her own demons while trying to sort through her relationship with her partner, Ham (Kenny Johnson), and dealing with visits from her last-chance angel, Earl (Leon Rippy).

Drain the Ocean (Sunday at 7 p.m., Discovery) -- The latest of Discovery Channel's ambitious CGI-driven speculations takes a look at what we might find if we were able to pull the plug and drain all the water out of Earth's oceans.

TV ON DVD:

Ally McBeal: The Complete Series (release date: Oct. 6) -- Here's a chance to revisit writer/producer David E. Kelley's late-'90s legal comedy/drama phenomenon, from its inspired and groundbreaking first season to its piffly-silly fifth-season farewell -- 32 discs in all. For less ambitious fans, a first-season-only six-disc set is also being released.

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--BBM Nielsen Media Research, Sept. 14-20

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 1, 2009 E5