‘Elsbeth’: Carrie Preston Talks Elsbeth’s Relationship With Son Teddy After Surprise Arrival (Exclusive)

After last week’s Elsbeth included the surprise arrival of Elsbeth’s son Teddy, Carrie Preston spoke to PopCulture.com about the characters’ dynamic for tomorrow’s new episode. Played by Ben Levi Ross, Teddy Tascioni has only been mentioned on a few occasions, including very briefly on The Good Wife over a decade ago. The end of Season 2, Episode 6 saw Kaya and Captain Wagner surprising Elsbeth with her son, who was to spend the holidays with his father since Elsbeth was so lonely.

Preston said it was “just lovely to finally meet Teddy. We’ve talked about him for so long in the show, the beginning of the whole universe of Elsbeth. I mean, I mentioned him one time on The Good Wife 14 years ago. And then didn’t mention him again until this show. And so now to have the flesh and blood, Teddy standing here, played by the wonderful Ben Levi Ross, is just great. You’re gonna see a side of Elsbeth that we haven’t really seen yet. We get to understand what she was like as a mother and see how she strives to continue to be a mother to a grown son, an adult son. And it’s always good to see that side of her. A character who lives in the world of work.”

This will be the first time that fans are seeing Elsbeth in her motherly mode and Preston shared she is “a little involved” in regards to her relationship with her son. “She doesn’t understand boundaries so well,” she continued. “Why she’s so good at her job? She just doesn’t pay attention to those things. But he’s teaching her about that. And she’s learning about that. And she’s trying to respect that because she wants him in her life. She doesn’t wanna drive him away. He’s somebody who might have some little insecurities, but they’re both trying to take care of each other, and that’s what’s so wonderful about it. You can see they are two people really care about each other.”

While one would think it would be hard getting into the mother-son dynamic right away, Preston said it wasn’t hard at all with Ross. “He’s such a wonderful actor,” she shared. “I read with him in the audition, and was he was so great. And there was just something about it, the dynamic between us, what he brought to the character, and it just felt right. And we all just knew that he was the right person for the role. And then, when he showed up, he just sent right in. It didn’t even take out a second for us to welcome him in and for him to just feel like he’s been there since Day 1. So that’s really nice. And he’s just a brilliant stage actor and then to see him doing this work on TV is lovely as well.”

Carrie Preston previously told PopCulture that Season 2 would be about “You can’t escape your past.” Even though Teddy would probably be bringing up some things from Elsbeth’s past, Preston said she was talking about something else that’s coming up. However, Teddy “does bring things up in Episode 7. He tries to get his mother to talk a little bit about why she really left D.C. and why she really left Chicago, and why she really left the legal world. She’s bound by some legal attorney-client privilege that she can’t really talk about things like that. But it’s difficult because she wants to be somebody who is ethical and doesn’t lie or doesn’t equivocate. And it’s hard when your child is acting point-blank, something that you can’t really share.”

Between Teddy’s appearance and Michael Emerson’s debut, this week’s episode will be an exciting one. It premieres tomorrow, Dec. 12, at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.