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[frelling_tralk]

‘Julianna Margulies on Nixed Good Fight Arc: CBS 'Wouldn't Pay' My Rate”

The actress was “really excited about the idea” of reprising her Emmy-winning role of Alicia Florrick, “but CBS refused to pay my [ask],” Margulies told our sister site Deadline while promoting her Nat Geo miniseries The Hot Zone at The Contenders Emmys event on Sunday

Comments

[nemophilist]

I still remember her weird drama with the actress on The Good Wife. That scene spilt was some entitled ridiculousness.

[frelling_tralk]

Lol same, that’s why I’m kind of torn on which side I agree with. Julianna certainly comes across as pretty demanding and entitled from what we know of the bts drama, so I could well see it as an unreasonable request of hers to make the exact same fee that she was making with TGW, but then at the same time I’m not sure if she’s correct or not that a male actor would not be expected to take a pay cut?

[nemophilist]

That's where I am haha.

[frelling_tralk]

Either way I’m surprised that she wasn’t willing to negotiate a little bit. Obviously she does deserve to make more than the typical guest star fee when she is a big name within the show, but point blank refusing to appear without her ‘regular fee’ seems a bit strong to me when she must have been making idk half a million per episode or something with TGW I’m guessing, surely they could have met in the middle somewhere?

[mazephoenix]

Well, well..I also recall the thing with Archie Panjabi and how badly Kalinda was written out. That said, she seems to have a point and so do the Kings. I've seen two seasons but gave up after that. Too cartoonish and way too much politics for me.

[frelling_tralk]

The whole thing with Archie is still so bizarre to me with how the King’s apparently bent over backwards to keep two of their main actors apart, there have been many bts feuds on other shows I’m sure, but it’s really going above and beyond to go to the expense of greenscreening your actors in order to get them into the same scene!

[watching_ghosts]

The Good Fight is one of my favourite shows out there at the moment, and I would have liked Alicia back for an arc! But yeah, I can see both sides of it here - if only they could have met in the middle somewhere so that she's getting more than a regular guest star, but not as much as she used to make per episode.

[frelling_tralk]

It’s all a bit ambiguous when Juliana says that they were only going to pay her a guest star rate, that makes it sound like she wouldn’t make any more than any other guest star which is definitely odd. She deserves to get a lot more than that when you consider her importance to the franchise, buuut I can also see CBS’s side that you’re just not going to make the exact same as you did when you were a lead on TGW, and Julianna seems to be suggesting in the article that she was holding out for exactly that when she talks about not accepting any less than her usual fee? But she was being compensated on TGW for having to work really long hours and basically carry the show as the lead, whereas they were talking about a three episode arc with TGF as a supporting character, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect her to take a cut in pay

[watching_ghosts]

I totally agree! It doesn't make sense to me to pay as much, when she'd be doing considerably less work as a guest star, than as a lead. From the sounds of it, it was Julianna who wasn't willing to budge, which sucks, but it doesn't surprise me after all the drama that came out while the show was still on air.

I'd honestly never thought she'd be willing to appear on TGF at all until these articles started coming out this week, so I'm not too upset about it. But it would have been nice. I wasn't the biggest fan of how they wrapped up TGW, especially when it came to the Alicia/Diane relationship, so it would have been good to have her back for a few episodes to see if that could have ended differently this time around.

[frelling_tralk]

There is definitely a sense that Alicia and Diane’s story is unfinished. And I do find it telling that Julianna seems to take it as a personal insult that CBS refused to meet her ask, she can argue that she’s not just any guest star and she deserves a bump in pay accordingly sure, but to say that ‘I’m not a guest star’ is just not accurate when you’re talking about making an appearance on someone else’s show

[malicat]

I do think that she deserves more than the usual 'guest star fee' but the whole drama with Archie and Julianna coming across as a huge diva,really made me like her less. To a point where I wouldn't want to see her on The Good Fight. I also feel like she wants all the attention on her instead of the leads from The Good Fight (especially Christine Baranski)?

The drama surrounding Maia and her family was a huge drag in season 1 but tbh,once they got it over with,The Good Fight because one of the best shows on tv at the moment. If not THE best. Season 2 was brilliant!

[frelling_tralk]

but the whole drama with Archie and Julianna coming across as a huge diva,really made me like her less

Same for me unfortunately :( After all of that bts drama with Archie apparently not being allowed to appear onscreen with Julianna, I couldn’t help but cynically wonder what the reasons could be for Alicia being pushed more and more to the forefront in seasons 6 and 7, while Diane was basically relegated to really stupid and pointless c plots, and Carey barely appeared at all...

[sictransits]

I don't watch TGW or the spinoff, but I wouldn't think she'd be paid what she was paid as the star of her show to guest star on the spinoff, or anyone doing the same thing for that matter. But maybe they should've offered her more than the regular guest star rate...kinda sad they couldn't have met in the middle. Plus like you said, I would imagine a streaming show has a smaller budget than the shows on cable.

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah I’m kind of confused at the moment on how it generally works, because Julianna certainly seems to believe that any male actor would get their usual fee if they appeared on a spin-off, but it seems unlikely to me that that is the case? They deserve to be well compensated certainly, but a supporting appearance on another show surely wouldn’t pay the same as when you were under contract as the lead of your own show?