Emmy-winner Carrie Preston is an eclectic and outstanding actor as well as a keen and formidable director in TV, film. and theater. She’s also managed to successfully work in almost every genre in each medium.
TV viewers know her as the delightfully quirky yet deceptively wise Elsbeth Tascioni on CBS’s The Good Wife for which she was honored with an Emmy Award in 2013. She reprised her role on Paramount+’s bold follow-up The Good Fight. She also just completed the pilot for Elsbeth, based on her acclaimed character, which will (hopefully) extend the Michelle and Robert King franchise.
Preston’s breakthrough role was on HBO’s groundbreaking series True Blood (2010 SAG Ensemble nomination) where she portrayed Arlene Fowler for seven seasons. Her many TV credits include Person of Interest, the LGBTQ miniseries When We Rise, Grace and Frankie, and most recently, TNT’s Claws and IFC’s Brockmire. Preston also directed episodes of Claws, The Good Fight, and the series Your Honor.
Born in Macon Georgia, Preston attended Julliard and began her thespian life on the New York stage, making her Broadway debut opposite Patrick Stewart in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. She appeared opposite Stewart again in the Guthrie Theater’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as Honey to Stewart’s George. Other theater credits include Chaucer in Rome, The Rivals, Hamlet and Festen, in 2006, her last Broadway show to date.
Preston’s eclectic screen work includes the blockbuster Julia Roberts vehicle My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Straight-Jacket, Transamerica, Towelhead, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Duplicity, Virginia, 5 Flights Up, 30 Miles from Nowhere, and the queer horror film They/Them.
She currently has two indie films in release: Kyra Sedgwick’s touching Space Oddity where she plays the mother of a boy (Kyle Allen) who, after a tragic event, decides he is going to Mars (currently in theaters) and Bastian Günther’s gripping film, One Of These Days, the story of a group of Texans who engage in an endurance contest, known as Hands On, to win a pickup truck (also currently in theatres and available on VOD).
Preston will be seen later this year opposite Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers.
Awards Daily had the pleasure of speaking with Carrie about her career to date.
