The Good Wife

During an Emmy roundtable for "Hollywood Reporter" in 2014, Julianna Margulies revealed that she was only the third choice for the lead part on the show. Ashley Judd and Helen Hunt both turned down the part of Alicia.

The show is set in Chicago, but filmed in New York. The pilot was filmed in Canada and filming was planned to continue there, but Julianna Margulies asked the producers to shoot in New York because she had just became a mother and couldn't leave for Canada for nine months a year.

The series was partly inspired by the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. It also draws on other prominent American political sex scandals, such those of John Edwards and Bill Clinton. Creator Michelle King also noted that in these political scandals, the women are lawyers (Hilary Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards).