Image Source: Paramount Plus

The cast of 'The Good Wife' is making leaps with their work after becoming famous with the CBS show. The Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles, Christine Baranski, Matt Czuchry, and Archie Panjabi starrer began in 2009 and ran for seven seasons. 

Two cast members, Charles, who played Will Gardner, and Panjabi, playing Kalinda Sharma, had left the show before its final season, which aired in 2016. Charles had left the show after the 5th season while Panjabi walked away just before the final season. 

“It’s been one of the greatest gigs for me in my entire career, but at the end of last year, my contract was up, and I was just ready to kind of move on,” Charles had said. “I think it was great for the show, and also I think it was a proper goodbye to the character, so that was special.”

Charles' exit from the show was hidden against the death of his character, which came as a great shock for all fans. Margulies, who played Alicia Florrick, had said that she tried to convince Charles to stay in the show, but he left. She had tried convincing him with an offer of just 15 efforts, guilting him to think of a baby that would come with his marriage, and said she felt disgusted to have used that reasoning. 

“I called Josh, and I gave him terrible Jew guilt. I knew he was about to get married. I’m good friends with his wife, and they’re dear friends of ours. I said, ‘Josh, how about this: 15. Think about it. Wait. Think about it. Money in the bank for 15 episodes. Do you know how expensive it is to have a baby in New York City?’ I went right to the kid thing, and it was disgusting, honestly." 

Soon, Panjabi left the show in 2015, and people were quick to spout rumors saying Panjabi left because she didn't get along with Marguiles very well. However, Marguiles quickly dismissed the rumors for being 'silly gossip' while Panjabi didn't let on much about the dishes. Following the exit from the show, season 4 onwards, body doubles were used for filming Alicia's character Kalinda's scenes. 

Image source: Vanity Fair

When asked for reasons to leave The Good Wife and if there was any substance to the rumors, Panjabi had said, “In terms of anything that happened on The Good Wife, I think it’s only respectful for it to stay on The Good Wife.” “It was time for me, for many reasons, to unzip the boots and step into another show," she added in an interview with the Television Critics Association’s press tour in 2016.

Even after putting the whole issue behind her, Panjabi says that people are still not over it and continue to dance around the rumors. When the New York Times inquired about the bad blood between the two actresses four years after quitting the show, Panjabi said, “We are living in a world where everybody wants to know everything. I completely understand why everyone asks about it. Everybody I meet asks me about it in some roundabout way.”

The actress is still on good terms with all of the show members, and all her ex-co stars are extremely happy with their friendships with her. When Us Weekly asked Czuchry, playing Cary Agos, about his relationship with the actress, he happily said they continue to be the best of friends. 

“She’s one of my best friends. We’ve stayed in touch very closely. We talk about personal things [and] we talk about professional things. So, to have a friend like that is deeply special. … Some of the things that we talked about way back in season 1 and season 2 of The Good Wife [about] where we wanted to go in the future with our careers, I think we’ve realized that a little bit. … With Archie, she always talked to me about [how] she’s Indian, and when she was growing up, she didn’t see people on TV who looked like her.”

Now that the series is finally over, CBS has already followed the show with its spinoff, The Good Fight. The show stars Baranski’s Diane Lockhart and premiered on CBS All Access. 

Here is where all the cast members of The Good Wife are right now:

Julianna Margulies

Image source: Us Weekly

Margulies has been quite busy since the show's finale in 2016 and has starred in many series since then. She has worked in AMC’s Dietland, National Geographic’s The Hot Zone, and also can be seen on Showtime’s Billions frequently. She's also been cast in The Morning Show, the Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Aniston starrer, as a source claimed in 2020.

Matt Czuchry

The actor played Cary Agos in The Good Wife for the seven-year duration of the show. He then played Logan Huntzberger in Gilmore Girls, the Netflix spinoff series of the name Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life in 2016. The star is now featured in The Resident, a series by Fox, and plays Conrad Hawkins.  

Christine Baranski

Christine Baranski has been cast as Diane Lockhart in The Good Fight, the spinoff series of The Good Wife, airing from 2017 on CBS All Access. She has also since then worked in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, 2018 playing Tanya and in A Bad Mom's Christmas in 2017. She can also be seen on The Big Bang Theory frequently. 

Josh Charles

Charles had left the show just after five seasons in 2014 and had played Will Gardner. The character was killed in the show following Charles's exit. Later he starred in Inside Amy Schumer, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. He also got cast in Away, 2020, a Netflix series, and in Law & Order True Crime, playing Dr. Jerome Oziel. 

Archie Panjabi

Panjabi exited the show after the 6th season and didn't return for the next season. Her character was hence carried out by body double. Next, she starred in Blindspot by NBC in 2016 and also returned for its 3rd and 5th seasons. She was also seen on Run and I Know This Much Is True by Netflix. 

Alan Cumming

Cumming starred through the seven seasons of The Good Wife, playing Eli Gold, and then went on to act as Instinct. He eventually landed a high-profile role along with Daniel Radcliffe in Endgame, a London stage production.