ELSBETH: Carrie Preston and Wendell Pierce Reflect on Their On-Screen Dynamic and Season 2 Hopes

In ELSBETH’s first season, Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston) partnered up with the NYPD under a consent decree to help solve crimes—and weed out corruption. What her de facto boss Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce) didn’t realize, at first, was that Elsbeth was also there to investigate him.

Eventually, Elsbeth was able to get to the bottom of the conspiracy—Wagner was set up—and the captain invited Elsbeth to continue consulting with the police department.

Though there was occasionally tension between the characters in season 1, the dynamic between Preston and Pierce is the exact opposite: The duo—who sat down with Give Me My Remote over the summer at TCA, days before they started filming the season 2 premiere—are warm and friendly, enthusiastic about their series (which returns for its sophomore season on Thursday, October 17), and very clearly big cheerleaders of each other’s work.

You both have incredible individual acting credits, but a new show, new chemistry, and a new dynamic is always unpredictable. What surprised you the most about working with each other in season 1?
Carrie Preston: I was a huge Wendell Pierce fan from the beginning—from THE WIRE. And we also went to the same school, Juilliard, but at different times. So we all knew the great Wendell Pierce even when we were in school.
Wendell Pierce: [Makes pained noises.] Don’t make me feel so old. [Laughs.]
Preston: No! You were just a few years ahead! You were just already making your mark immediately when you got out of school.
Pierce: And it was the same for me with Carrie. That’s all they had to say to me. They said, “Carrie has this show—” and I’m like, “Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.” [Laughs.] I wanted to work with her, a big fan of hers. Then she reminded me that we had worked together, and I could not believe it. We did this BBC radio play together.
Preston: Right when I first got out of school.
Pierce: Yeah.
Preston: It was Wendell, Phylicia Rashad…
Pierce: It was this BBC radio play, and she reminded me of that. And I was like, oh, man, that’s right, that’s right. But I was a big fan of hers, so that was once they said it was her show, that was the thing that did it for me, before I even knew what the show was going to be.
Preston: I mean, when they said he said “yes,” I couldn’t believe it. I just could not believe that we were getting Wendell Pierce to come on to this CBS show. I just was like, “Oh my God. I’m so amazed and honored and humbled by that.” I still am.
Pierce: I’m the same. I’m humbled and honored to be working with her. And also, I’m gonna give a shout-out to our school. We went to Juilliard. And they numbered the classes, so anywhere in the world, you go up to a Juilliard alumni, you say group 14 or group 35, 42. But my brother went to West Point, and they have the same tradition of being a member of the Long Gray Line, and they just say, “I’m a member of the Gray Line, class of.” And that’s the way I feel. We all go through different things when you’re training, but feel as though we’re part of a legacy. And there was that connection. I love that.
Preston: And it also means when we go to do a scene together, there’s just that instant. [She snaps her fingers.] We work the same way. And Carra Patterson, who plays Officer Blanke, she went to NYU [with] a lot of the same teachers…And so even though she’s younger than us, you can see that we all have this similar type of training, and it makes for a really great triumvirate.

There was a really delicious dynamic between Elsbeth and Wagner in season 1: There was well-meaning deception as she tried to figure out if he was dirty and he was trying to get to the bottom of what she was investigating. Now, things are out in the open and they know he was framed. How has that changed their dynamic as we head into season 2? 
Preston: Well, the question is: Has the trust been eroded at all? And that’ll be interesting to see. We had that wonderful reconciliation at the end, thank goodness, because it was really eating Elsbeth up and it threw her completely off of her game. So that reconciliation was much needed and appreciated. But how is that going to carry out now? And I think they both know that each other are good people. And so I think that that is what the foundation of the relationship is going to be. But I also think that they’ve inspired each other. Elsbeth wants to do well for him, because she wants to stay in this job, and she feels really good that she proved the Department of Justice wrong about him.
Pierce: And I see the skill set that she has, that I would go so far as to keep her onboard, no matter, even though we have that conflict. That my perception of her as an investigator, and the inspiration that I get from that, reminding me of the officer and investigator that I always wanted to be—and still aspire to be. And that’s why I keep her on. But then, as you say, you have to restore that trust, and there has to be repairs. And so that gives us something to play, because we have to navigate that landscape of how are we going to inspire each other, be complementary of each other, appreciate her skill set, and put it to good use, but at the same time, restore the trust? I’m sure there are going to be moments of, “Did I do the right thing? Was this a good choice or bad choice?” You always have regrets, and wondering if you did the right thing. But it’s that restoration which gives us something to play with.

In addition to Wagner having to clear his own name last season, he found out he was betrayed by a dear friend and close colleague. How is that betrayal playing into how he interacts with people in season 2?
Pierce: Absolutely. There’s another variable that people have to deal with before he makes that leap of faith. His trust in people, in general, has been eroded, and so he feels as though he has to be very careful about when he gives that trust over to someone. There will be an interrogation of everyone that he meets. [Laughs.] We kind of start off with that in the beginning of the second season, you see him immediately interrogating those around him to make sure I am not going to put into jeopardy what I worked all my life to build. That informs how he moves forward. He will be a little less trusting and will challenge people a little bit.

Elsbeth was adjusting to this world of investigating in season 1. Now that she has the Wagner case behind her, and has a number of successes under her belt, how is she approaching cases in season 2?
Preston: Well, I think she’s going to lean on Officer Blanke a little more. Lean on him [gesturing to Pierce]. She sees Officer Blanke as a mentee, but also as a colleague, and that they’re in it together. They both need each other. So I think we’ll see that. I think we’ll see Officer Blanke get more involved in the cases. Elsbeth feeling like, “Oh, okay, I don’t have to always be the one to have the first instinct.” I think it was just by necessity [last season that she thought,] “I really need to do well in this job” that made her be the primary investigator or detective. So I think that’ll be how she handles things a little bit differently this season.

The official season 2 tease mentioned there are mistakes from the past that come into play this season. What might that mean for these characters? 
Preston: Well, you know, Elsbeth left Chicago, and in her mind, [she’s] reinventing herself, [a] brand new person in this city. Single, new job—the most she gets is a new dog and a friend or two. That doesn’t mean Chicago has gone away. So I think that we’ll see some things, maybe from her professional past; that might start to creep into her New York life.

Something viewers who knew Elsbeth from THE GOOD WIFE or THE GOOD FIGHT might be familiar with? Or something entirely new?
Preston: I think it might be a little bit of both. I don’t know, but it’s been suggested that this might be a fun thing to explore.

Going into season 2 is always different from starting season 1, but this is more than most since you really started the grind of season 1 after the strikes. Going into this year, what conversations did you have with the writers about your hopes for season 2 and what they want to see from you? 
Pierce: Well, I haven’t had many conversations about where we’re going. [To Preston.] What’s really been interesting is, for me, I don’t know if you’re feeling this way, I feel like we just had a long weekend, [as if] we’re going into production on the next episode in five days. 
Preston: That’s exactly how I feel, too.
Pierce: I’m excited to get back to work because it’s immediate. I did not realize how long the break was because of the strike last year. So there’s an immediacy to it that I feel comfortable with. And when you get a new script, you’re always looking for what are the new elements to put into the world that you already know about? And because you know your character and the world around them, the new circumstances will inform you. And so I look forward to what those circumstances will be, and the immediacy of us not knowing is actually what life is like. And so when something happens, then you get to react to it, and you react to it from a place of knowledge of who you are. So that’s how I feel with the character. [Wagner is] a little less trusting because of what happened, or I’m just a little bit more vigilant about how I conduct myself and how I develop relationships. So next week is the next episode. That’s how I’m looking.
Preston: Yeah, it seems like we’re just picking up right where we left off, because we will be, script-wise. And true, the hiatus went by very fast, but we also have twice as many episodes to do now. So there will be a longer marathon, so to speak. So it will be about pacing ourselves. And the fun thing about our show, though, is each episode is a different world. So there’s a freshness that comes to us every episode. We get a brand new series regular for two weeks, and they go away, and get another one, then they go away. And so that really keeps us on our toes in a great way; the writers, too. They’re having to explore whole new worlds. It’s not like the same world with the same characters every week. 
Pierce: It keeps us on our toes.
Preston: We’re excited.
Pierce: Very excited. And so we learn different things about the characters. Something can happen in the story, or the actor will do something, and you go, “Oh, wait a minute…” I remember in the first moment when [Wagner and Elsbeth] kind of really challenged each other in the first season. And then I think the writers recognized that too. And so from that moment on, we saw [it show up in scripts].
Preston: We saw more and more little challenges that we would have.
Pierce: And so they discover what we do with the characters, and we discover what they’re setting up in the story. And it keeps it very fresh. It’s like a little mini-movie from week to week.

What is your biggest hope for season 2?
Preston: I mean, I hope that we continue to explore what Elsbeth is like outside of work, just because I think it then informs what she’s like at work. And I think we will, just by the nature of how long the season is going to be. That’s going to be a fun thing to delve into.
Pierce: Personally, for me, I want to get as good as Carrie. She’s great. [Preston starts to object.] I’m serious. I’m serious! I watched the shows, the reruns, now in this break, and I go, “Carrie is really good.” What she does in creating this character, going from situation to situation, and is consistent in the world that she’s built and who the woman is—that takes great skill. Great skill. And the thing I was thinking about was, “I want to make sure that I’m as good as Carrie from week to week, because what she’s doing from week to week is iconic.” And that’s not smoke. That’s the real deal. She’s very good.

ELSBETH, Season Premiere, Thursday, October 17, 10/9c, CBS

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