Elsbeth has cast Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development), Dianne Wiest (In Treatment, Parenthood), and Lois Smith (Ladybird, Twister) as guest stars for its upcoming third season.
The dramedy premieres on Sunday, Oct. 12 (9:30-10:30 PM, ET/9:00-10:00 PM, PT) on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Based on the character featured in The Good Wife and The Good Fight, Elsbeth Tascioni (Preston) is the astute but unconventional consent decree attorney working with the NYPD to catch New York’s well-heeled murderers, utilizing her unique perspective.
Wendell Pierce has been a series regular since Season 1, starring as Captain Charles Wallace. Carra Patterson, who played Kaya Blanke in the first two seasons, will pivot from series regular to guest star in Season 3.
Hale will play Craig Hollis, a FinTech CEO who has become increasingly paranoid about the current “eat the rich” zeitgeist, in episode 6. As a precaution, he’s built a fancy safe room underneath his luxurious townhouse that turns out to be an imperfect method of murder.
Wiest will play the Reverend Mother Constance Mary Cabot, who is responsible for keeping her convent running and keeping the sisters safe in episode 7. When a blasphemous pop star threatens to upend their happy life and displace the sisters, Mother Constance sets out to save the convent by any means necessary.
Smith plays Delores Feinn, the cantankerous longtime supporter of the Pidgeon Press who has promised to leave the poetry journal a great deal of money in her will… if she ever dies. She will appear in episode 5 alongside the previously announced William Jackson Harper. He guest stars as the founding director of a New York City poetry journal, desperate for funding.
It was revealed this week that The Good Wife/Good Fight star Sarah Steele would be reprising her role as Marissa Gold in an upcoming episode of Elsbeth.
Previously announced guest stars for the Season 3 premiere include Stephen Colbert as Scotty Bristol, a late-night host alongside Andy Richter as Mickey Muntz, Scotty’s hilarious but long-suffering sidekick. Amy Sedaris will play Laurel Hammond-Muntz, the headstrong and devoted head writer and executive producer of the popular late-night talk show Way Late, which Scotty hosts.
Lindsay Mendez will also appear in the premiere as Officer Grace Hackett, a hard-working officer and an aspiring stand-up comic when off the clock. When she teams up with Elsbeth for a case focused on the world of comedy, her knowledge of the business comes in handy.
Annaleigh Ashford will guest star in a special Halloween-themed episode playing Sharon Norman, a murderous suburban housewife. She recently starred as the daughter of a serial killer in the Paramount+ series Happy Face, executive produced by Robert and Michelle King, the creators of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Elsbeth.
Elsbeth is produced by CBS Studios and executive produced by Robert King, Michelle King, Jonathan Tolins, Liz Glotzer, Erica Shelton Kodish, Bryan Goluboff, and Gail Barringer, with Tolins serving as showrunner. The Kings co-created the series.
Hale is best known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Gary Walsh, the loyal and anxious aide in the critically acclaimed HBO series Veep. He also gained widespread recognition for his portrayal of the quirky Buster Bluth in Arrested Development. He most recently starred in the Netflix dark comedic series, The Decameron, as well as starred in and executive-produced Angel Studios’ newest family thriller, Sketch. Hale is repped by UTA.
Oscar and Emmy award winner Wiest is currently guest-starring in Hulu’s hit comedy series Only Murders in the Building‘s fifth season. She plays Lorraine Coluca, the widow of slain doorman Teddy Coluca, the murder victim of the season. The series reunites Wiest with her Parenthood co-star Steve Martin, Let Them All Talk costar Meryl Streep, and Nathan Lane, whom she worked with on The Birdcage.
She is best known for her Academy Award-winning roles in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets over Broadway. Notable credits also include Road to Avonea, In Treatment, and Mayor of Kingtown on the small screen, and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Footloose, and The Mule, to name a few of her big-screen hits. Up next, she will reprise the role of Aunt Jet in Practical Magic 2 and the Paramount Players’ feature Apartment 7A. Wiest is repped by CAA.
Smith recently appeared at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway in Matthew Lopez’s play The Inheritance, for which she won a Tony Award. Her film credits include Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird, Marjorie Prime, East of Eden, The French Dispatch, Fatal Attraction, Minority Report, Twister, Fried Green Tomatoes, and The End. On TV, she appeared in Law & Order: Organized Crime, Ray Donovan, On Becoming a God in Central Florida, The Affair, and The Americans. Smith notably played Adele Stackhouse, daughter of the show’s lead character, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), in HBO’s hit vampire drama True Blood. Smith is repped by Cornerstone Talent Agency in New York and AKA Talent Agency in Los Angeles.
