It’s going to be the season of the bitch on “The Good Wife.”
Campaign manager Eli Gold (Alan Cumming) — a master puppeteer who capped his career with the election of Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) as Illinois governor — has been replaced. His revenge will be a dish served cold.
“The betrayal is something Eli will never forgive,” says Cumming, who joined the show in January 2010. “Peter did the worst possible thing he could do. Eli’s allegiance is forever changed. He’s there for the long haul to get back at Peter.”
There’s one obstacle: Eli’s replacement, the formidable Ruth Eastman (Margo Martindale). “She has to be destroyed en route,” Cumming says.
The hostility between the two characters is so palpable, Cumming says a woman passed Martindale in the supermarket and said, “Leave Eli alone.”
Watching Cumming try to steal scenes from Emmy winner Martindale has the athletic appeal of watching two tennis pros lunging for each other on either side of the net. “I admire her so much,” he says of Martindale. “She acts like she means it.”
The Scottish-born actor wasn’t sure he wanted to go on “The Good Wife” at all, but his management convinced him otherwise — and, since then, Cumming has seen his New York profile soar.
Primarily a theater actor best known for his Tony-winning performance in the revival of “Cabaret,” he’s played the Cafe Carlyle in a show called “Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs” and published a well-reviewed, best-selling memoir, “Not My Father’s Son,” which chronicled his unhappy relationship with his dad, Alex.
“The Good Wife” gig has also allowed him to stay in the city, where he lives with his husband of three years, graphic designer Grant Shaffer.
It’s Cumming’s second marriage; his first, to actress Hilary Lyon, lasted eight years. Ask him what’s the difference between being married to a woman and a man and Cumming gives a tinkling, leprechaun laugh. “Well, you know … It’s different when you’re with someone of the same gender,” he says. “There’s more of a recognizing of who you are. It’s a guy-guy thing, not a guy-girl thing.”
The other luxury of being on “The Good Wife” is to “have a regular gig for all that time and to do other things in the gaps. That’s been lovely,” he says. His ambitious slate includes a series of concerts that will take him to Carnegie Hall in February. He’s also working on a second memoir for Rizzoli, due out next spring.
“This one is photographs I’ve taken, with stories about them. They’re about things that have happened to me,” he says. “The first memoir was kind of like a thriller, but it was actually my life. This one is a bit lighter. Like a bite-size thing people could pick up and put down.”
As for “The Good Wife,” Cumming lets slip that Episode 10, which will air this winter, will blow fans away. “It’s an unresolved plot point from years ago,” he says.
Cumming’s co-star Julianna Margulies once described him to an audience of advertisers at Carnegie Hall as the most talented person on the show — whereupon Cumming came out on stage dressed as Eli in a business suit that he soon ripped off to reveal his “Cabaret” costume underneath. Then he belted out a number from the show. The contrast could not have been more striking and the advertisers gave him an ovation.
“I still have that rip-away suit,” he says.