Television / Web

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The Good Wife: Season 2

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Eli Gold returned to The Good Wife's second season as a series regular.  I was really happy to go back and explore this character some more.  This season saw Eli on the campaign trail to re-elect Peter Florrick as State's Attorney.  This also meant his relationship with Alicia was stretched and ultimately strengthened as the tow became to respect and care for each other.

On a personal level we  discover that Eli is a divorcee with an 18 year old daughter, and he has a brief romance with a young student he encounters on the campaign trail played by America Ferrera.

The writers on this show are so amazing and I felt that they gave me some great stuff to do again, and the way that Eli showed a softer side was really fascinating to play.  Ultimately he is still a political animal but that ruthlessness was pretty comical on many occasions too.

Here is a little Eli tribute someone made and then the behind the scenes videos CBS.com asked me to make.

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The Runaway

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The Runaway is a six part mini-series for Sky TV in the Uk, based on Martina Cole's novel of the same name.  I play Desrae, a transvestite singer and owner of a club in London's Soho in the swinging sixties.

I really liked this character initially because he was strong and proud in the face of so much adversity.  I then really liked the fact that he and his gangster boyfriend (the amazing Ken Stott, with whom I worked years ago inPlunkett and Macleane) were actually the most loving and stable couple in the whole story! Then I really liked the relationship he had with Cathy, the runaway of the title, played by Joanna Vanderham.  He is basically the matriarch of the whole thing. Oh, and he doesn't get shot or beaten to death like most of the rest of the characters!!

So it was a new and interesting thing for me, and then came the most challenging part: going to South Africa and transforming into a laydee.  That was a nightmare. I hate to Veet (or Nair) all the hair off my body and then there were the shoes (ouch), the bras (ouch), the  nails (ouch) and the many hours in make-up (ouch ouch). I have a new-found respect for women after doing this.  It seems interesting to me that so much of a woman's appearance, or in the way a woman is desired, is designed to keep her in bondage or to make her vulnerable. Very interesting, Mr Bond.

Anyway, some days I felt like a lovely lady, like the scenes when I performed numbers in my club. Then, on other days I felt like an bloke in a bad wig. But I guess that's the whole kaleidoscope of Desrae.

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The Good Wife: Season 1

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I joined the first season of The Good Wife on CBS as a guest star to play Eli Gold for a few episodes. The show stars Julianna Margulies as Alicia, whose politician husband, played by Chris Noth, has been involved in a sex scandal.

Playing Eli is fascinating for me because he is a grown-up. He is a man in a suit. They even put grey in my hair, which is quite funny considering my hair was colored, so they were actually putting grey on top of color on top of grey! He is an image consultant, a reputation rehabilitator, and he is Jewish. He is a million miles away from me. Also I was filming in gaps between shooting Burlesque with Cher and Christina Aguilera, in which I play a club door whore with black nail varnish and Comme des Garçons outfits, so the whole experience was a little schizophrenic.

But I learned something.  Initially I thought I didn't understand Eli, he seemed so far away from me and I was unused to the process of TV series acting. But then I just altered my opinion of him and instead of thinking I don't relate to him because he has a life that I don't comprehend, I thought he is exotic like every human being and I can understand that.