'Elsbeth' Actress Carrie Preston Reveals the Classic TV Show That Inspired Her Character
Carrie Preston has been playing Elsbeth Tascioni for 14 years and the character is finally the focus of her own show, Elsbeth!
Elsbeth was first introduced as a recurring guest star on the CBS series The Good Wife and she also made appearances on the Paramount+ spin-off series The Good Fight. Now, Carrie stars in the CBS mystery series Elsbeth.
In a new interview, the 57-year-old actress discussed the inspiration behind the character and how the led to the structure of the new series.
Keep reading to find out more…
Carrie revealed in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter that Elsbeth was modeled after the title character from Columbo.
“Fourteen years ago, when they first offered me this delicious role, Robert King got on the phone with me and said, ‘The way we’re thinking about her is like a female Columbo,’ so it’s kind of prophetic that here we are borrowing the structure of Columbo and those great ‘howdunits,’ but with this very unexpected character at the center of it,” she told THR.
Carrie continued, “We’re so used to seeing men [in these roles] — Sherlock, Monk, Columbo — so to have a woman who’s very decidedly unusual, not trying to blend into what’s pretty much a man’s world, makes it really fun and refreshing and a great contrast to what we usually see in a procedural.”
So, will Elsbeth be on television for 10 seasons like Columbo?
“I’ll play this character as long as people will have me play her,” Carrie said. “We’re in a volatile time in our business. It’s very unpredictable, so the fact that we get this opportunity to not only do it again, but to do twice as many episodes as we did in season one, I’m grateful every day because I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to do it. Nothing lasts forever, so I’m going to enjoy it for as long as I can.”
Check out all of the season two cast updates that we know so far!