Carrie Preston on working with husband Michael Emerson

SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses plot details from the latest episode of “Elsbeth,” airing Thursday on CBS.

Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson met 30 years ago in a production of “Hamlet” at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival – she played Ophelia; he was Guildenstern — and they married in 1998. Since then, they’ve appeared opposite each other a few times: Preston made a guest appearance on “Lost,” playing Emerson’s character’s mother in a flashback and she also returned as his fiancée on ” Person of interest’.

But Emerson’s arrival as a recurring guest star on Preston’s CBS show “Elsbeth” marks the first time the couple has played enemies.

“Listen, I don’t see him in my marriage,” Preston says, referring to the long hours required to play the title character of a procedural role, as she and Emerson log into Zoom with Variety from their home in New York City. “I had to get a part on the show just to see my own wife,” says Emerson.

In the episode, titled “One Angry Woman,” Elsbeth is called for jury duty (a commitment that means she’s finally a real New Yorker) and ends up on the jury of a murder trial presided over by an unusually difficult judge. Emerson plays bespectacled judge Milton Crawford, whose cavalier attitude conceals a much darker secret: that he committed the murder in question.

Naturally, Elsbeth is quick to spot Judge Crawford’s strange behavior, but she can’t quite put her finger on what’s wrong, creating a contentious situation between the two as the trial progresses. By the end of the episode, it’s clear that this was just round 1 for Elsbeth and Judge Crawford.

“Let’s think of him as the Moriarty to Elsbeth’s Sherlock,” Preston teases.

Read on as Preston and Emerson discuss their on-set dynamic — and as they pitch a few ideas for working together again.

It’s so fun to watch you spar verbally. But I’m very nervous for Elsbeth, because this man is a cold, hard killer.

CARRIE PRESTON: You should be nervous for her. This man is a cold-hearted killer who is also extremely powerful.

Tell me how this all came about – because Carrie’s guest appearance on ‘Lost’ started as an inside joke and you both worked with Robert and Michelle King. How did the “Elsbeth” link come about?

PRESTON: Ever since the show aired, people have been asking, ‘Who would your ideal guest star be? Who would you like to have on the show?” I said, “Well, wouldn’t it be nice if my husband could be on the show?” It wasn’t that it was my idea – anyone would be lucky if Michael came on their show – it was all about Jonathan Tolins, our showrunner, and Robert and Michelle King, the creators, finding the right role for him. And I think they found it.

MICHAEL EMERSON: Because at the end of the day, we’re both in good standing with the Robert and Michelle King Repertory Players, so if something happens and we’re right about it, they’ll join us. Carrie kept saying, “Brace yourself, because there’s going to be a call somewhere down the line here. I was like, ‘Bring it on. That will be fun.” They won’t bring me in if it’s not something beautiful, and it turned out to be.

Michael, what did you think of Judge Crawford? Because this character is a different kind of coward than Leland in “Evil.”

EMERSON: When you’re in a series for a long time, you forget what it’s like on the first day of something new. Where you haven’t established a character yet and have to make that up. You have to make something three-dimensional quickly, so it was difficult the first day.

The first day I shot was the kill, and I’m just a guy with a baseball bat. I hadn’t really settled on all the different angles of his character yet. They finally came, as we went along. It makes you realize how much fun it is when you’re in a series for a long time; you don’t actually think much about creating a character. You did it. You just put on the clothes and it’s you.

PRESTON: The guest stars almost always start with the murder, because that’s the only thing I’m not involved in. Generally, I’m on a different unit to finish the previous episode, so we’ll have two crews filming at the same time, so the bad guys often come in and commit murder immediately. You’ll get right into it!

Is this the first time you’ve played characters who are enemies of each other?

EMERSON: I don’t think we’ve been hostile to each other. We have always had scenes of warmth and love – not as enemies.

PRESTON: That way we didn’t contradict each other. He plays a lot of evil characters and a lot of dark characters, and I play a lot of light-hearted characters, and to see both energies competing against each other, it was a lot of fun. It was really like good and evil.

EMERSON: It’s like a collision of universes.

The interesting thing about these characters is that they respect each other’s intellect, but they are opposing forces. What was it like to play?

PRESTON: Michael and I don’t rehearse together. We don’t even talk about the scenes at home. I don’t know what that says about us, but I think I trust him implicitly. I also like the element of spontaneity that comes with not knowing what the other actor is going to do. Come in, know my role and have an idea of ​​where I’m going with it, but it’s more like playing jazz than anything.

We found a very easy rhythm playing these scenes, especially because we have so much trust in each other, and the scenes were incredibly well written. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. We had some great writing to work with, and then we just tweaked it. We had a great director who helped us find little nuances, and we just ran with it.

What was the first scene you had together?

PRESTON: We did the courtroom first. Those are long days; they are very difficult to photograph and the poor judge is always the last to appear in front of the camera.

EMERSON: It’s tough being a judge.

PRESTON: Because they want to shoot the bigger things first and then narrow it down to just one person on camera – and that’s always the judge.

EMERSON: We also shot those courtroom scenes in chronological order, so as the audience gets to know the characters and relationships, we got to know them at the same time.

Tell me about the scene in the rooms, when it’s just the two of you now.

EMERSON: It’s one of those types of scenes that I like the most, which is one on one. It’s quiet, but the subtext is very dangerous. Many messages are sent that are outside the text.

PRESTON: And we played it different ways, so they could turn the dial up, or they could turn the dial down during editing, depending on how they wanted the storyline to go.

EMERSON: We haven’t seen it.

PRESTON: They don’t let me see shows until it airs, so I see it with the audience. So I’ll be curious to see. I can’t wait to see how it comes together. Because it’s one thing to play it in the room – then the possibilities are endless, and then when we see it on TV, it becomes final. Sometimes I don’t even want to look at it because I know what we did, and I know what it could be in my mind. But there were so many different ways we did it that were equally interesting; we gave them some good choices.

EMERSON: I’ll be curious to see it. I can’t wait to see it!

Michael, what was it like watching Carrie work?

EMERSON: I’m a fan of Elsbeth, but when you’re on set, you see Elsbeth right before they say “Action,” and right after they say “Cut” again. I get to watch her do that thing, and then go in and then come out, it.

It makes acting a little bit difficult just because I don’t have a neutral character in front of me. I have the person I woke up with that morning, so I have to spend some mental energy erasing her from my memory and turning her into someone I’ve never met before.

What did you notice about her before “Action” and after “Cut”?

EMERSON: I observed her relaxation. How it just is that way for her. It doesn’t require a lot of deep breathing or pinching yourself or anything like that. When they say action, she is there completely on Elsbeth, seemingly without any effort.

Carrie, you’ve played this character for so long: fourteen years on “The Good Wife” and then “The Good Fight.” But this is a new version of her and a new pace, because it’s the center of the action. How much did you enjoy this version of Elsbeth?

PRESTON: This moment is not lost on me in my life or in my career. I’ve been doing this for a long time. When you’re younger and just starting out, you think, “Oh, wow, it would be great to have a show that focuses on my character,” but there’s never the expectation that that’s going to happen. Because it doesn’t happen to very many people at all. I’ve had an incredibly serendipitous career. I feel blessed to have the career I’ve had, so the fact that this is coming now, because of all the years I’ve put into the work, I appreciate it more

I have also never worked so hard because the hours are challenging. It takes a lot of hours to make the 43 minutes you watch. And if your name is Elsbeth, you are there a lot and that can be a bit of a challenge for endurance. But whenever I find myself lagging energy-wise in any way, I remind myself that this is incredibly rare. It’s a gift. I just turn to someone on set and tell them how great he is. I just try to put that love and joy into what I do and share it with other people so that everyone feels as happy, joyful and appreciated as I feel I am trusted in that job.

At the end of this episode, the audience is given the idea that Elspeth has found out that Judge Crawford knows more about the murder he reported after letting slip that Donna Summer was playing. What comes next?

PRESTON: He is someone who will not be easy to catch because of his reach, his power and his influence. But I don’t think he fully understands Elsbeth Tasioni’s tenacity either. He is only now beginning to realize that she is not all that she seems to be.

EMERSON: The judge goes to work to undermine her in a number of ways. We’ll get little glimpses of him scattered throughout three more episodes, and then there’ll be another big episode where they…

PRESTON: Are there three more?

EMERSON: Yes, I have five in total.

PRESTON: Look, I don’t even know.

EMERSON: She is on a need-to-know basis.

PRESTON: Listen, I’m episode by episode.

Do you have future ambitions to collaborate or create something together? Because you had the mother-son relationship on ‘Lost’…

EMERSON: A Freudian nightmare.

PRESTON: Yes, that’s something when you give birth to your husband in the woods. Not many people can say they have done that.

EMERSON: At least I didn’t have to do that scene.

Well that would have been something! So we have a mother-son in ‘Lost’, you played a couple in ‘Person of Interest’ and now antagonists in ‘Elsbeth’. What other type of relationship could you enter into in the future?

PRESTON: Mentor-mentee.

EMERSON: Doctor and patient.

PRESTON: Should he play my father in a flashback somewhere? A turnaround is fair play, right?

EMERSON: I can’t give birth to you, but I can teach you valuable life lessons around the campfire.

This interview has been edited and condensed.