- Born
- Birth nameCarrie Elizabeth Preston
- Height1.63 m
- Carrie Preston continues to reprise her Emmy Award-winning role as the astute but unconventional attorney 'Elsbeth Tascioni' in the hit CBS series, Elsbeth. The beloved character was first introduced in the acclaimed series The Good Wife on the network and appeared in The Good Fight on Paramount+. Elsbeth premiered to rave reviews with New York Times stating Carrie "reigns as the queen of quirk." The successful series has been picked up for a third season, which she is set to also produce.
Preston spent four seasons starring as Polly in the TNT series, Claws. Prior to that, she played Arlene Fowler for seven seasons on HBO's true Blood, while also recurring for five seasons on the Network's Person of Interest, playing the love interest to her real-life husband, Michael Emerson. Other major TV series include the co-leading role in the NBC sitcom Crowded, ABC's LGBTQ rights-driven miniseries When We Rise, and arcs opposite Hank Azaria in Brockmire and Joshua Jackson in Dr. Death. Her extensive list of guest star appearances includes ABC's Lost and Desperate Housewives.
Carrie made her feature film debut in Julia Robert's blockbuster "My Best Friends' Wedding" and other notable film roles include scene-stealing roles in "Duplicity," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the Oscar-nominated "Transamerica" (as Felicity Huffman's sister), "That Evening Sun" with Hal Holbrook, with Joe Cole in "One of These Days" and "To The Bone" with Keanu Reeves and Lily Collins. She played Kevin Bacon's wife in two films: the Kyra Sedgwick-helmed "Space Oddity" and "They/Them." She received praise for her role opposite Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne's Oscar-winning film, "The Holdovers".
Trained at Juilliard, Carrie made her Broadway debut playing Miranda to Patrick Stewart's Prospero in "The Tempest" and later played Honey with Stewart and Mercedes Ruehl in "Who's Afraid of Virgnia Woolf?" at The Guthrie Theater. Other stage work includes "Festen" with Jeremy Sisto and Julianna Margulies, "The Rivals," "Antony and Cleopatra" with Vanessa Redgrave, and playing Mia Farrow's daughter in James Lapine's "Fran's Bed."
Carrie is also a sought-after director. Television credits include two episodes of THE Good Fight, two episodes of Showtime's Your Honor, and two episodes of claws, in which she also starred. She also directed the Sundance Film Festival feature "That's What She Said" starring the late Anne Heche, Marcia DeBonis, and Alia Shawkat.
Carrie lives in New York City with her husband Michael and their adopted dog, Chumley. In her free time, Carrie supports LGBTQIA+ rights and GLAAD, is an honorary board member for the new play development organization, The New Harmony Project, and is a supporter of Parkinson's Research while also working with the Michael J. Fox Foundation.- IMDb mini biography by: Conscious Hollywood
- SpouseMichael Emerson(September 5, 1998 - present)
- ParentsJohn Ray PrestonPamela Lowe
- RelativesJohn Gray Preston(Sibling)Leslie Lowe Preston(Sibling)
- Carrie had a recurring role alongside her husband Michael Emerson on the TV show Person of Interest (2011), where they played lovers.
- Has appeared on Lost : Les Disparus (2004), playing the mother of the character Ben Linus. Ben is played by Preston's real-life husband, Michael Emerson; the age difference is explicable because Ben's mother died shortly after giving birth to him.
- Preston met her now-husband Michael Emerson during the mid-1990s when they both appeared in a production of "Hamlet" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Preston played Ophelia and Emerson played Guildenstern in the production.
- Has played the sister of Felicity Huffman twice - Desperate Housewives (2004) and Transamerica (2005).
- She and her husband, Michael Emerson, are both in the movie Straight-Jacket (2004).
- 'The Good Wife' was definitely the biggest surprise and gift that I've had in a long time, and that did come out of some other work that I had done. That whole adage of 'work begets work' actually worked in that case - it was at the very end of their first season that my character was first introduced.
- 'True Blood' is shot on film. It's more like a movie, and they take more days to shoot it, plus it has an hour of content. 'The Good Wife' is network. They're shooting on HD. It moves quicker and they only have forty minutes of content instead of a full hour. Not to mention the difference of shooting, you know, rated-R stuff!
- We women often gauge our own self-worth by the quality of our interactions with our lovers. And often these interactions are interpreted for, described for, processed by our women friends. Relationships are the conduits through which flows our connection with each other.
- I shot all my stuff on 'Arrested Development' in one day, and was brought into a really well-oiled machine. 'Cause it was the last season, and they were wrapping up a lot of stuff because they knew at that point that they weren't coming back. There seemed to be kind of a freedom, and certainly the cast had a great amount of camaraderie.
- The heroines in 'That's What She Said' are flawed, messy, damaged, hilarious and culpable and not really concerned about being acceptable to the audience in any traditional sense, which for me is what makes them all the more gorgeous. And the fearless truth of that is what makes it funny.
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