Julianna Margulies plays Laura Peterson on second season of The Morning Show. Image Source: Page Six 

Julianna Margulies, who has been roped in to play LGBTQ news anchor, Laura Peterson on the second season of Apple TV’s "The Morning Show," opposite Reese Witherspoon, who plays Bradley Jackson. The actress has been receiving a little criticism for playing a queer character while being heterosexual in real life. Julianna Margulies has been married to lawyer Keith Lieberthal since 2007.

The actress confessed that she has no regrets about her decision to play a queer character on the show. In a candid interview with CBS Mornings, Julianna Margulies said, "I can understand that. My response also would be we’re all making assumptions as to who I am and what my past is, and what all of our pasts are. I understand 100% that I can’t play a different race. But I am an actress, and I am supposed to embody another character. ... Are you telling me that because I’m a mother, I can never play a woman who has never had a child? Or, if you’ve never been married, that you can never play a married woman? You have to be careful about where you’re drawing the line there. We’re actors. We’re supposed to embody a character regardless of their sexuality. When it comes to race and gender, that’s a whole different story, and I 100 percent agree with that."

In a podcast "Just for Variety" last month, she shared that she understood that as soon as she was signed in for the role of Laura Peterson, there would be a backlash about a straight woman playing a queer character on-screen. In her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Julianna Margulies said that she jumped at the chance to join the second season of the hit Apple TV drama "The Morning Show", to spice up the drama between the lead anchors, i.e., Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. She said,  "Instead of bringing a man in to upset that balance, you bring in a woman. I found that to be such a nice breath of fresh air,"she said of Laura’s intimidating stature". 

Laura Peterson is brought on "The Morning Show", in the place of Alex Levy played by Jennifer Aniston after she publicly breaks down at the end of the season one. Laura is a veteran news anchor opposite Bradley Jackson, who was fired for coming out with her sexual identity in the 90s. Instantly, the two anchors spark a romantic connection and conversation around Bradley’s sexuality starts to spark in the public.  

Julianna Margulies feels that her character is powerful, and she feels 100% comfortable in her own skin and has no ulterior motives or any hidden agendas. The actress looks at Laura Peterson as a character who is probably the only character who has no skeleton in her closet, and she views her as someone who  just had to stand still in the middle of chaos to make a difference. She continues, "It’s almost like she’s the lens of the audience and the audience gets to watch these people absolutely spiraling down in front of your eyes but you sort of see it through Laura’s and Laura’s done all the work on herself to get completely comfortable with who she is in her sexuality to have gone back to field work in journalism and really earned her stripes the right way to get to where she is in her career, which is at the top. It’s sort of a wonderful place to play, to watch people squirming and to say, ‘Your life doesn’t have to be this hard. You’re making it much harder than it needs to be.’"

A still from "The Morning Show". Image Source: Distractify 

Showrunner Kerry Ehrin told the Hollywood Reporter that she thought of casting an actress who publicly identifies as gay in the role of Laura but instead went ahead with Julianna. She explained, "Casting has so many elements that go into how it plays out, and I do very much care about inclusivity and representation, and I feel like that’s something that we all need to work on."  The showrunner further stated that when Reese Witherspoon shared with the showrunner that she felt Bradley was queer after the first season was the time when the makers decided to share more about Bradley's sexuality in the second season. 

Reese Witherspoon added that the romance was inspired by "more than one dear friend of mine being in her 40s and finally feeling free enough to really figure out who she was and explore her sexuality without knowing really what her path was going to be and just being a little open-minded about loving people; and how it doesn’t matter who you fall in love with, it can come up out of nowhere in your life. And that’s what Julianna’s character really represented."

Reese Witherspoon plays Bradley Jackson on the show. Image Source: Entertainment Weekly 

The conversation or criticism around a straight actor playing a queer character has been circling around the industry for a while. Benedict Cumberbatch, who played a queer character in 2004's "Imitation Game", recently spoke in an interview about playing a gay character in the upcoming movie "Power of the Dog", "It wasn’t done without thought. I also feel slightly like, is this a thing where our dance card has to be public? Do we have to explain all our private moments in our sexual history? I don’t think so."

Kristen Stewart and Dan Levy in "The Happiest Season". Image Source: Entertainment Weekly 

Kristen Stewart, during the release of her movie "The Happiest Season," told Variety, "I would never want to tell a story that really should be told by somebody who’s lived that experience." Having said that, it’s a slippery slope conversation because that means I could never play another straight character if I’m going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law. I think it’s such a gray area. You kind of know where you’re allowed. I mean, if you’re telling a story about a community, and they’re not welcoming to you, then fuck off. But if they are, and you’re becoming an ally and a part of it and there’s something that drove you there in the first place that makes you uniquely endowed with a perspective that might be worthwhile, there’s nothing wrong with learning about each other. And therefore help each other tell stories. "

The first five episodes of the second season of "The Morning Show" are streaming right now on Apple TV+.