Fans of The Good Wife already know how much work Julianna Margulies put into playing the part. She told Glamour about the 14-hour days, and how she decided to wear a wig to play Alicia Florrick because her hair is naturally curly, and it spared her a full hour from her already long workday. It would be ungrateful (to say the least) to suggest that anybody else could've ever played the part to, as she described in the interview, the "very coiffed" perfection that won her so many Emmys. It clearly meant a lot to the actress to get the character right, which is why it might be shocking to consider that she actually wasn't the first choice for the role.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from 2014, Margulies admitted she almost turned down the part out of pride when she learned she was the third to be offered the role. Before her, the part was apparently offered first to Helen Hunt and Ashley Judd. In the interview, Margulies joked, "[The] writers always say: 'No, we always wanted you. It's just the studio wanted Helen Hunt!'"

Both Hunt and Judd are amazing talents, of course, but when both did finally make their return to TV after The Good Wife began to air - Hunt in 2017 on Shots Fired and Judd in 2012 on Missing - neither show lasted longer than a season, despite the star power. So whatever the studio had wanted from Hunt and Judd, Margulies proved seven seasons over that she could more than provide as the series' main draw.