Topical storylines are key to success of ‘Good Fight’
NEW YORK — Cush Jumbo loves a deadline.
“I’m very good under pressure,” she said. “Give me a script and no rehearsal and I’m there. That’s me.”
Which makes Lucca Quinn, her defiantly competitive, quickwitted lawyer on “The Good Fight” — a spinoff of “The Good Wife” — streaming on CBS All Access, a perfect fit for the British actress.
Set in a liberal black Chicago law firm, “The Good Fight” rips its stories from the headlines with such rapid-fire ferocity that you’d swear its writers were gazing into a crystal ball — turning the week’s political news into scripts that land with the cast the day before shooting.
They also have no qualms about transforming momentous occasions within their own ranks into entertaining fodder. At the end of Season 2, Lucca, played by a pregnant Jumbo, gave birth to her son by her occasional sparring partner and former lover, Colin Morello (Justin Bartha). Season 3 finds Lucca struggling to maintain her momentum on the partner track while mastering parenthood.
Jumbo, 33, spoke about the craziness of art replicating life (and vice versa) — and why she still has hope.
Q: When Michelle and Robert King conceived “The Good Fight,” it seemed likely that the show would be set during a Clinton presidency. Then Donald Trump won, and the storylines have been uncannily prescient. How do they know?
A: Basically, I think that they’re either spies or wizards, or possibly both, because they just have such an extensive knowledge of what is going on in the world.
Q: Last season, the big focus was a path toward impeachment. This season began with the toppling of a founding partner and civil-rights leader in a #Metoo scenario.
A: I didn’t see that coming at all, but it’s typical of them. It’s like they make you really revere somebody and build him up as a kind of idol and icon, and then tear him down. They want to keep moving the goal-post and shifting the ground beneath you because that’s what’s happening around us all the time.
Q: Doesn’t it get rather depressing dissecting America’s political landscape season after season?
A: I think a lot of people, when they’re watching our show, are like, “God, things are so terrible.” And maybe all my brains dropped out with the baby, but I’m so hopeful. There are so many people under 100 that want things to improve, that all the other people eventually have to die. I feel like this sounds really stupid, but I just bounce around in the morning like, “Things are going to get better!”
Q: You’re one of the few crossover characters from “The Good Wife.” Now that “The Good Fight” is three seasons in, can you compare the sets?
A: With “The Good Wife,” I didn’t realize that I was walking into something quite unusual on a TV set in America in terms of a crew that had mainly been together for years, and so had families and histories with each other, and really loved working together. And I think a lot of that vibe rolled onto “The Good Fight.”
I feel like everybody’s only just caught up to us because our current regular cast is over 50 percent women and over 50 percent actors of color, and I don’t know another show that has that.