Elsbeth‘s casting director stays busy with a constant rotation of guest stars to play killers of the week on the Columbo-inspired CBS procedural. The series has collected a star-studded guest list across two seasons that includes Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick (and his son!), Laurie Metcalf, Alyssa Milano, Mary-Louise Parker, David Alan Grier, Vanessa Williams, and more. And of course, Season 2 had a noteworthy recurring guest star in Michael Emerson, Carrie Preston‘s husband who came on as Elsbeth Tascioni’s arch nemesis. Casting director Findley Davidson already has her eye on her ideal guest star for Elsbeth Season 3.
Discussing the guest star casting process, Davidson said it was harder to get talent booked in Season 1 when the show was still a relative unknown. While Preston’s character is a fan-favorite from The Good WifeandThe Good Fight, theElsbeth title didn’t immediately click for agents. “I’d call up somewhere like CAA, and they’d say, ‘How do you say it? Elizabeth? What’s the name of the show?’” Davidson told Variety. “That was really hard in the beginning.”
Now,Elsbeth is a sought-after gig. The short time commitment, a chance to play a villain, and the prospect of acting with Preston are the main draws for incoming stars, Davidson revealed. She’s hoping that one TV star who hasn’t appeared on the small screen in a while will be interested in joining the fold inElsbethSeason 3, set to premiere this fall.
“Phoebe Waller-Bridge is someone who I think would be interesting and a little bit of a departure from what we’ve seen,” Davidson said. That would certainly be true. Many of theElsbeth guest stars play characters who are wealthy Americans, as the series likes to pull show the dark underbelly of Manhattan’s elite society. If Preston already has a relationship with Waller-Bridge, she may be able to get theFleabag star on the show.
“Carrie just sets the tone so beautifully on set,” Davidson shared. “She’s been doing this for a long time; she’s friends with many of these actors. She’s just a big, big draw because people love working with Carrie.”
The biggest struggle even with the show’s popularity is the schedule. The actors don’t have to commit to many days on set (Davidson said that her pitch, most of the time, is a very simple, “Do they want to come play with us for 10 days?”), but the nature of broadcast TV procedurals is to still be working on scripts for upcoming episodes while others are filming. This forces Davidson to work in a tight turnaround pretty often.
“It’s a little stressful, if I’m being honest, because the cadence is fast,” she explained. “The deadlines keep coming. There’s no reprieve when you’re working in episodic television. There’s a fantastically talented writers’ room and 20 episodes, but they don’t know where the entire season is going. So for some episodes, I’m lucky if I get the script delivered three weeks before filming. Other times it can be closer to two, which is when I start to sweat a little bit.”
Elsbeth snagged its firstGood Wife alum as a guest star in Season 2 when Christian Borle reprised his role as Chicago lawyer Carter Schmidt. Who else would you like to see appear inElsbeth Season 3? Let us know in the comments below.
Elsbeth, Season 3 Premiere, Fall 2025, CBS