So long, Elsbeth Tascioni, but Carrie Preston is still on TV

NEW YORK – Carrie Preston appeared on only 14 episodes of “The Good Wife” during its seven seasons on CBS, but her character, the spacey yet keenly observant lawyer, Elsbeth Tascioni, was always met with excitement from fans.

Just this week, a Twitter user wrote, “I will never love another fictional character as much as I love Elsbeth Tascioni.”

Another said, “My life goals are to be like Elsbeth Tascioni.”

Keep in mind, her last appearance was in February, and fans can’t shake her.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Preston said co-creator Robert King offered this guidance on the character when she appeared in season one:

“He said he thought of it as a female Columbo. But I had never seen ‘Columbo,’” she said.

“So, instead of getting tripped up with that, I started to focus on what was on the page. … I just started thinking about what it would be like to be a person who has the ability to focus on 100 things at once and that your brain works that fast, that you can actually be working on a case and complimenting someone on their blouse and thinking about picking up your dry cleaning all at the same time and none of the other things suffer. And so I just kind of took that and ran with it.”

After that first appearance in season one, Preston said, “I didn’t hear anything for an entire season. I thought, ‘Oh wow, I really blew that.’… Then in season three I got a call.”

Preston, who won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Tascioni, believes her character was brought in “just when things might get a little too serious on the show. I don’t think it would’ve worked to have her there every episode.”

She doesn’t appear in the remaining two episodes of “The Good Wife,” but fans can see her on Sundays (9:30 p.m. EDT) on the new NBC sitcom “Crowded.”

Preston and Patrick Warburton play a couple whose two grown daughters leave the nest, only to return home. One set of grandparents lives next door, making things very crowded (hence the show’s title).

Preston, who has also had supporting roles on shows like “True Blood,” says it’s interesting to be a lead actor.

“I’m used to coming in as like the pinch hitter. I like it, I feel like I have a little more say on things. I’m pretty deferential to the writers but it’s nice to help build something from the ground up.”

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Online:

http://www.nbc.com/crowded

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Follow Alicia Rancilio online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar