‘The Good Wife’: Rose Leslie Cast In Spinoff Series For CBS All Access
Meet Diane’s goddaughter. Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey alumna Rose Leslie has been cast as a lead opposite Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo in the upcoming followup The Good Wife series for CBS All Access, CBS’ VOD and live streaming service. Leslie will play Maia, Diane’s (Baranski) goddaughter who joins her firm just after passing the bar, and is a key part of Diane’s plan for the future.
The Good Wife spinoff series, said to be a little lighter in tone than the mothership drama, will pick up one year after the events of The Good Wife series finale on CBS. An enormous financial scam has destroyed the reputation of a young lawyer, Maia (Leslie), while simultaneously wiping out her mentor Diane Lockhart’s (Baranski) savings. Forced out of Lockhart & Lee, they join Lucca Quinn (Jumbo) at one of Chicago’s pre-eminent law firms.
Leslie is the first actor cast in the spinoff who was not on the original series. In addition to Baranski and Jumbo, she joins Sarah Steele, who will reprise her role as Eli Gold’s (Alan Cumming) smart and outspoken daughter Marissa Gold. In the spinoff, she begins as Diane Lockhart’s secretary, but finds she has a knack for investigating.
“We’re thrilled to have Rose on board,” said The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King who co-wrote the spinoff and will serve as executive producer/showrunners. “We needed a young actress who could hold her own with Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo, and Rose is perfect. She’s real, she’s strong, and she can play comedy. If we designed an actress from the ground up, we couldn’t have done better.”
Scottish actress Leslie is probably best known for her roles as Gwen Dawson on the popular costume drama Downton Abbey, and as Ygritte on the hit HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. Her additional credits include the UK series Luther and Utopia and the features The Last Witch Hunter and Morgan.
The new The Good Wife series will debut in February 2017 on CBS before moving exclusively to CBS All Access.
Robert and Michelle King co-wrote the premiere episode with Phil Alden Robinson, who will executive produce the premiere episode. The Kings executive produce the series with Ridley Scott, David Zucker, Liz Glotzer, Brooke Kennedy and Alison Cross for CBS Television Studios in association with Scott Free Productions and King Size Productions. The series will be distributed worldwide by CBS Studios International.
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