Carrie Preston

Carrie Preston is an American actress, director, and producer born on June 21, 1967, in Macon, Georgia, to Pam and Ray Preston. Her brother, John G. Preston, is also an actor. Preston studied at the College of Charleston, where she performed in a production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Evansville in 1990. She subsequently completed an acting diploma at the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of Group 23, graduating in 1994.

Preston's stage career brought her to Broadway between 1995 and 2006, with credits including Festen, the play The Rivalry, and The Tempest. Her screen career spans both film and television across several decades. Among her film appearances are the romantic comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), the comedy-drama Transamerica (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Doubt (2008), To the Bone (2017), They/Them (2022), and The Holdovers (2023). She also appeared in the 2004 comedy film Straight-Jacket and the 2008 feature Ready? OK!, both of which she made alongside her husband, actor Michael Emerson, whom she married in 1998.

Preston is perhaps most widely recognized for two long-running television roles. From 2008 to 2014, she played Arlene Fowler across seven seasons of the HBO fantasy drama True Blood. Simultaneously, she developed a recurring presence on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife as Elsbeth Tascioni, an eccentric but highly effective trial lawyer first introduced in season one and returning through seasons three to seven. That performance earned Preston the 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, and she received a second nomination in the same category for the show's final season in 2015.

Preston reprised the role of Elsbeth Tascioni in The Good Wife spinoff The Good Fight beginning in 2017, continuing through 2022. In 2023, CBS announced a dedicated spinoff series titled Elsbeth, with Preston as the central character. The series was ordered on May 9, 2023, premiered on February 29, 2024, and was renewed for a second season on April 18, 2024.

Among her other television credits, Preston appeared in the CBS crime drama Person of Interest from 2012 to 2016, playing Grace Hendricks, the former fiancée of Emerson's character Harold Finch. She had a recurring role in the second season of The Following in 2014, portraying Judy, a character described as a prostitute and groupie of Joe Carroll. In 2016, she starred opposite Patrick Warburton in the short-lived NBC comedy series Crowded, and from 2017 to 2022 she played Polly Marks on the TNT crime drama Claws, a character who had served prison time for identity theft. Preston also guest-starred in Lost, appearing in the season three episode "The Man Behind the Curtain" as Ben's mother Emily in flashback sequences, though she and Emerson did not share scenes in the episode.

Beyond performing, Preston is co-owner of the production company Daisy 3 Pictures alongside James Vasquez and Mark Holmes. In July 2010, she and Emerson performed A. R. Gurney's play Love Letters at the Charleston Stage as a fundraiser for the venue.