Imagine the shock of, after more than 25 years of marriage, having your spouse visit you at work, only for you to realize he’s a murderer.
For Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson, it’s par for the course when it comes to their relationship and careers—and the experience could not have been more pleasant.
The Emmy-winning couple (Preston for The Good Wife, Emerson for Lost and The Practice) are merging their work and home lives as Emerson joins Preston’s CBS series Elsbeth in a juicy guest arc that has their respective characters going toe-to-toe.
The chance to work together is a treat. “Immediately when the show started, journalists like yourself would ask me who would be my dream guest star, and I would always say, ‘Well, I’m married to one of our greatest actors working,” Preston tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, over a Zoom conversation with Emerson from their New York City apartment.
Piqued interest in this stretch of Elsbeth episodes because they are a married couple—as in, people are fascinated by their personal lives and not just their work—that’s the part that’s been taking some getting used to.
“It’s not like I’m doing any dual interviews with any of the other epically talented guest stars on our show!” Preston says, laughing. “We’re slightly uncomfortable about it, to be honest. Because we’re sort of on display right now as a married couple instead of just two actors who happen to be doing really cool projects.”
On Elsbeth, Preston plays the title character Elsbeth Tascioni, an attorney who moves to New York City on a special assignment to supervise the police department’s detective unit.
The series evokes Columbo in its framing: Most episodes begin by showing audiences a murder, including who committed it and why—hence, the reveal that Emerson plays a murderer is not exactly a spoiler. The rest of the running time tracks the investigation. Elsbeth’s kaleidoscopic wardrobe of flashy, clashing patterns and kooky demeanor tends to disarm people, often leading her to crack the case.
The series is a spinoff of The Good Wife and The Good Fight, on which Preston played Tascioni in a guest star capacity. Now, she’s the leading lady of her own show.
“I’m really thrilled to be sharing this show and this character that I love so much and that I’ve played for so long with him,” Preston says about Emerson joining Elsbeth. “That he’s coming into this world that I’ve been swimming or marching around—tripping around in—for 14 years now.”
Emerson’s arc kicks off Dec. 12. He plays Milton Crawford, a domineering, narcissistic, yet very shrewd New York City judge who, it’s revealed in the opening sequence, brutally kills a man in his apartment. The man’s neighbor, a woman who had been sleeping with him, is arrested and charged with the murder. Crawford is assigned as the judge for the case, and, despite an obvious conflict of interest because of her job that should have had her dismissed, Elsbeth is selected for the jury.
Throughout Thursday night’s episode, Elsbeth becomes confused and, eventually, suspicious of why Crawford is letting frequent miscarriages of justice occur during the trial—she does have a background as a brilliant attorney, after all—causing both of them to look at each other with a strongly arched eyebrow.
“We’re thinking of him as the Moriarty to her Sherlock,” Preston says. “That character is going to be the thorn in her side. The thing that she can’t quite get a handle on, but is tenacious about.”
Both Preston and Emerson are seasoned veterans of what could be called the Robert and Michelle King TV universe. The Kings are the co-creators of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Elsbeth, as well as the supernatural procedural Evil, on which Emerson starred for four seasons.
“I think people are interested in us in this meta way, partly because we’re both well known for characters that represent a certain kind of universe, and those two universes are really different,” Emerson says. “So it’s like a collision of dimensions or something. It’s like matter and antimatter. How can they exist in the same space without exploding?”
“He plays like all these dark, evil characters and I’m always playing these lighter characters that are responsible for the humor of a show,” Preston says. “So to see them face off, and then knowing that the actors playing them have been together for 30 years, I think it’s fun.”
But, she’s quick to add: “Honestly, there’s so many people who had no idea that we’re married.” Emerson chuckles next to her. “We have spent a quarter of a century letting people know that we are two actors who are married,” he says
Emerson and Preston first met at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, eventually marrying in 1998 in Preston’s home state of Georgia. They’ve acted together on stage several times over the years. Preston has had several memorable guest-starring roles on Emerson’s TV projects; she played his character’s mother in flashbacks on Lost and his character’s former fiancée on the CBS procedural Person of Interest. This is the first time, however, they’ve played actual adversaries.
“There’s a little bit of, ‘Don’t look at me that way…’” Preston jokes, now that she’s acting against her husband while he plays a killer.
The truth is that the dynamic acting against each other felt far more normal than it did unsettling because, well, they know each other. They also weren’t taking their work home with them, talking about the role and rehearsing scenes before leaving to set—which many people might assume.
“We were just showing up the way we always show up with a guest star. It just happened to be the person we woke up next to,” Preston says.
“We were relieved of that problem waiting to find out…” Emerson starts, before Preston finishes his sentence: “...how someone works.” Emerson picks it up again: “Or if they’re going to behave. If they’re going to be pleasant.” “That stuff,” Preston says emphatically, hinting at possible experience.
Emerson closes the exchange out with a laugh: “I already knew her to be highly unpleasant.”
Elsbeth airs Thursday nights on CBS.
