Emmys Watch: Christine Baranski on \'The Good Wife\' and Competing With Maggie Smith

September 18, 2012, 4:28 pm

By KATHRYN SHATTUCK

We will be talking to Emmy nominees leading to the awards show on Sunday night. Previous entries in this series include Don Roy King, director of “Saturday Night Live,” and Abi Morgan, nominated for writing “The Hour.”

The Emmy Awards

More coverage of the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, including reports, reviews, interviews with nominees and more.

Christine Baranski considers herself first and foremost a comedian. But there is something almost terrifying about a woman whose theatrically honed voice - full-bodied with crisp consonants and rounded vowels - pours forth in complete paragraphs wit h nary an “er” or an “um.”

That voice suits her as Diane Lockhart, the queen bee of the law firm Lockhart Gardner on the CBS series “The Good Wife,” for whom the laughs were few and far between last season.
It will also put her in good stead should she ever find herself face to face with Maggie Smith, who like Ms. Baranski has been nominated for an Emmy for best supporting actress in a drama.
Turns out even stars get starstruck.

In a recent phone interview, Ms. Baranski spoke with Kathryn Shattuck about being a stronger woman among strong men, her song-and-dance dreams and how turning 60 was all in a day's work. These are edited excerpts.

This is your third nomination as Diane. What's her appeal?

After this season, I said to the writers, “I think one of the reasons people are liking Diane so much is that sometimes she's the only grownup in the room.” Certainly that was true through Season 3 [last year], where she was havi ng to play the tough cop and go toe-to-toe with these guys with their big egos and pour a glass of Scotch and sit down and have a heart-to-heart. And I think that Diane is kind of level-headed. There's a good moral compass. I think in our culture right now, we're looking for the compass in the room.

Was it fun assuming more of a power position?

Totally. It was a combination of getting the hang of the genre, so to speak, because I had not really done a series drama. I was getting my sea legs. Then right off the bat, they were making it clear that Diane was going to be holding down the fort with with the firm having all these internal squabbles and traumas. So I knew that I had to go to a deeper level and find how to play that power and authority. The fascinating thing about power is that when you have it, you don't need to raise your voice. And you don't need to work hard. You let people come to you. And as an actor, that's a very challenging thing to do.

Does the power thing carry over into real life?

It does, actually, yes. I'm getting a lot more respect on the street when I order my smoothies.

Did it surprise you that Diane turned out to be something of a mentor to Alicia this season rather than a sort of obvious antagonist?

It didn't surprise me. I've loved the fact that Diane has recognized Alicia as a rather extraordinary woman in her own right who's a damn good lawyer and managed to keep her integrity ever present during very difficult times. And I think the idea of women mentoring each other is a worthy thing to be explored - because so often it's the reverse. So often women are fighting or being threatened by each other.

What can viewers look forward to in Season 4?

We're definitely in a very low place when the season begins. I'm actually in bankruptcy court telling the judge we're $60 million in debt. You can imagine there's more upstream swimming for Diane. But Will [her law par tner, who was suspended last season] is back, and they're back kind of as a power couple at the firm. But really, disempowered because they have a trustee who's ever present, a man who's come in to basically oversee the firm and our finances, and if we don't raise X amount of dollars in six months or so, we'll be liquidated.

Who is the trustee?

Nathan Lane. And playing scenes with Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth - we've had this roster of Broadway musical talent, and we all joke that Alicia should have a dream at which she's at the law firm and there's this mad Christmas party with all these characters singing show tunes. And then we'll all get to do that thing that Mandy Patinkin used to do on “Chicago Hope,” where he would just start singing. And then she'll wake up, and we'll just all go back to being characters at Lockhart Gardner. But we've got to get this out of our system. We're always saying: “There's no laughs. There's no songs. What's happeni ng?”

What's the key to Diane's chemistry with Will?

Isn't it great? Honestly, [Josh Charles, who plays Will] and I, from the minute we met, just hit off. We can go at each other with such humor. And we've got a great off-camera relationship that translates onto the screen. Robert King [one of the executive producers, a group that includes his wife, Michelle King] likes to say it's the healthiest marriage on the show.

So, is the third Emmy nomination a charm?

What completely blew my mind this year was that I, an actress out of Buffalo, would be in the same category as Maggie Smith, who to me is just incomparable. I remember seeing Maggie Smith in a movie theater playing Desdemona, and she's been my idol all these years. To be in a category with her is astounding.

And if you met Maggie Smith …?

I would be tongue-tied

You turned 60 in May. How was that?

I've been lucky to turn decades when I was a working actress. I tu rned 40 on a matinee day doing a Terrence McNally show in a role that had been written for me. When I turned 50, it was a run-through that I had done for Stephen Sondheim the day Steve arrived for “Sweeney Todd” at the Kennedy Center. And I turned 60 while doing “The Good Wife.” It doesn't freak me out the way a lot of women react to turning a decade. I feel very much the same person I have been for all these years. I also feel like I have a lot to learn. I'm kind of grateful. I've had a great, great run.