Macon native Carrie Preston found her dream role in CBS’ ‘Elsbeth’

In 2010, Macon native Carrie Preston landed a role as quirky, brightly colored lawyer Elsbeth Tascioni at the end of Season 1 of CBS’ critically acclaimed show “The Good Wife.”

At the time, Preston figured it was a fun one-off to be quickly forgotten.

But producers Robert and Michelle King loved Preston’s take on Elsbeth and brought her back every so often to both “The Good Wife” and its spinoff, “The Good Fight.” She even won an Emmy in 2013 for outstanding guest actress in a drama series for the role.

Then, during the pandemic, the Kings binge-watched the 1970s detective series “Columbo.” They realized Elsbeth was basically a female version of him: intuitive, likable and entirely underestimated. In 2023, they gave Preston her own comedic crime show, “Elsbeth,” which returns Thursday on CBS at 9 p.m. for its fourth season and is available the next day on Paramount+.

“Elsbeth” was the 35th most popular show across all streaming, broadcast and cable programs last season, averaging 9.2 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen data.

“It was definitely something that I dreamed about as a little girl, that maybe I’d get to do this,” Preston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “So many things had to line up for this to happen. It’s a total miracle.”

Since the mid-1990s, she has acted in more than 70 TV and film roles, on top of an array of stage, directing and producing credits. “It felt like the perfect time for me to transition into a leadership role,” she said.

Preston has had regular roles on HBO’s dark vampire drama “True Blood” (2008-2014) and the TNT dramedy “Claws” (2017-2022), but in those cases, “I was No. 2 or No. 3,” she said. “And I’ve done so many supporting roles. I feel like I’ve been doing this so long, I have a deeper appreciation for it and also a real understanding of what it’s like for everybody else I’m working with.”

Her goal on set has been to “create an atmosphere of acceptance, joy and appreciation everywhere.”

Preston grew up in Macon with an engineer dad and an expressive art therapist for a mom.

“I got the best of both worlds,” she said. “My dad was science, engineering left brain. My mom being the artist is right brain. I was very studious as a kid. But I was also very creative and did all the arts: dance, art, acting.”

She performed in local school plays and community theater from a young age, following in the footsteps of her older brother, John Preston, who became a stage actor.

“We started our own drama club at Central High School when there was none,” she said. “We did adaptations of ‘Cinderella,’ ‘Snow White,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ Even back then I was playing funny character roles. I’d play the witty maiden, the kooky godmother.”

She said her desire to create funny characters stemmed from watching copious amounts of “The Carol Burnett Show.”

And her parents, she said, never discouraged her from taking the acting path. “When I did Shakespeare in Utah or California, my mom would always fly out to see me,” she said.

After a year at a college in Charleston, South Carolina, Preston moved to Indiana’s University of Evansville, which had a rigorous conservatory-based acting program. She got a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, then did postgrad work at The Juilliard School in New York City.

From there, she landed some work on and off Broadway, but over the years, TV became her primary home. She said she’s thrilled that “Elsbeth” enables her to shoot all over her longtime home of New York City.