Julianna Marguliessays she nearly reprised her role of Alicia Florrick on the third season ofThe Good Fight —CBS All Access’ spinoff toThe Good Wife —but ultimately turned it down when CBS allegedly wouldn’t meet her rate.
While promoting her National Geographic miniseriesThe Hot Zoneat The Contenders Emmys event in Los Angeles on Sunday, Margulies claimed to Deadline that she was excited about the idea of stepping back into Alicia’s shoes when CBS offered her what would have been a three-episode arc on the series.
She said she’d do the work for her regular fee. Instead, CBS allegedly said they’d give her a lower, guest star rate. “To be perfectly honest, I was shocked,” Margulies, 52, told Deadline. “I was more surprised than hurt. I thought, ‘What are you worth?’ ”
“I’m not a guest star; I started the whole thing withThe Good Wife,” Margulies said. “I wanted to be paid my worth and stand up for equal pay. if Jon Hamm came back for aMad Menspinoff or Kiefer Sutherland wanted to do a24spinoff, they would be paid.”
The situation left Marguiles ruling out the possibility of any future guest spots, she told Deadline. “If you are worthless, if you are not valued for your work, than what’s the point?” she said.
Reps for CBS did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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Margulies won two Emmys during her role onThe Good Wifeas Alicia, a politician’s wife who decides to resume a law career after her husband is caught in a cheating scandal. The show ran for seven seasons, from September 2009 to May 2016.
The Good Fightfollows Alicia’s adversary Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), as she’s pushed out of her own firm and forced to start her career over. It premiered in February 2017 and is currently airing. A rep for Baranksi also didn’t immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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And while Margulies’s season 3 arc never happened, Robert King — who co-createdThe Good WifeandThe Good Fightwith Michelle King — gave fans an insight into what Alicia’s story would have been.
“We thought maybe about making a big episode where she would be at the resistance, [and] Diane and her face each other,” Robert told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in February, Deadline reported. “But that would be the end of the story. It felt like an asterisk.”
source: people.com
