How Christine Baranski remade herself, in her 60s, into a TV heroine: 'It was a long wait'
Christine Baranski never wanted "The Good Fight," the topical, uncannily prescient legal drama in which she plays high-powered liberal feminist attorney Diane Lockhart, to end on a pessimistic note.
A spinoff of CBS' long-running drama "The Good Wife" intended to anchor the company's then-nascent streaming service (now called Paramount+), the series was set to arrive at the dawn of a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency, with Diane brought on as an ironic diversity hire at a majority Black Chicago law firm in a post-Obama world. Of course, things turned out differently, and the show gamely pivoted to the tectonic cultural shift of the last six years, leaning into storylines that audaciously skewered the state of U.S. politics — and life — in Donald Trump's America.
For Diane, it's been exhausting. But for Baranski, it's been thrilling.
"I've never enjoyed the work more," she says. "I can't believe I'm saying, after 13 years, that it's still so enjoyable and maybe more enjoyable than ever because I'm so comfortable with the character, and I was delighted with new colors coming out of her [this season] — having a flirtation or taking this hallucinogen that loosens her up or brings out other aspects of her. Usually by year 13, people are just collecting the paycheck, right? That was not the case with me."
After an acclaimed six-season run, "The Good Fight" concluded Thursday with a series finale titled "The End of Everything." And if you ask Baranski, she'll tell you it's a happy ending. The poised and sophisticated attorney,
