‘Elsbeth’ Star Carrie Preston Previews Star-Studded Season 3 Premiere (Exclusive)

Elsbeth’s third season premieres this weekend, and star Carrie Preston spoke to PopCulture.com about what to expect.

In “Yes, And…,” airing on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS, “Elsbeth dives into the world of late-night comedy when backstage tensions rise between a talk show host (Stephen Colbert), his head writer Laurel (Amy Sedaris), and her on-air sidekick husband, Mickey (Andy Richter).”

Additionally, “Elsbeth meets a new police officer (Lindsay Mendez) who is an aspiring stand-up comic when off the clock.” With the amount of guest stars involved, Season 3 is already off to a great start. Preston also shared what’s in store for her titular character as she continues to navigate work and life without her best friend and following the events of Season 2. Take a look at what she had to say. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

PopCulture: What can you preview for the Season 3 premiere of Elsbeth and the incredible guest stars that are involved?

Carrie Preston: Well, we’ve got Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Andy Richter, and Lindsay Mendez. So we have an incredible lineup there. And, for me, it was just such a thrill because I was a huge Strangers Candy fan. If you remember that show, it was Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert. And so it was fun to work with those two legends at the same time.

And Stephen, I had only just met because I did his show when we were launching the whole series. And so, that was the only time I’d ever been around him, but he’s just so great, and it was so fun to have him, and he was really game and ready to go.

PC: Going off of that, I know that he previously expressed interest in working on the show. What was it like when he finally came on, especially after everything that happened with The Late Show?

Preston: Well, they did write this for him. He had been saying for a long time, “I wanna play a dead body on a CBS procedural.” So it was, “What about Elsbeth? We’ll do it! We’ll find something for you.” And so John Tolins wrote the role for him, who was our showrunner. He wrote the role for him months and months and months ago, and we were all set to shoot with him. But then the week before he was supposed to come on set, his show, we found out and the whole world found out that it was ending. And so we thought, “Oh, gosh. He’s gonna be a little too busy. He’s not gonna be able to do it.” But, true to his word, he showed up. He said he couldn’t wait. He was so excited to be there.

PC: With Kaya gone, Elsbeth has had to get used to working closely with different police officers. At the end of Season 2, she worked with Ethan Slater’s Officer Reese Chandler, and now she’s working with a new police officer played by Lindsay Mendez. What is their dynamic like?

Preston: Oh, it’s great. Lindsay Mendez plays Officer Hackett, who is a police officer by day, but she does stand-up comedy at night. And, so they have a great dynamic. And Elsbeth, she always tries to find a way to connect with people, even if it seems like she’s not going to be able to do it. She’s got a superpower. She could find the key that unlocks whatever it is that makes you connect with someone. But she connects with Officer Hackett pretty quickly. And there’s a rotating number of other uniform officers that she’s gonna work alongside this season. Some from last season, and then a couple of new ones are coming. And then same with our rotating detectives. So it keeps the show fresh, and it keeps Elsbeth on her toes.

PC: How is she doing without Kaya, especially since she was really one of her only friends in the city?

Preston: It’s tough. She loves Kaya, and she wishes her well, but she misses her. But in the same way that Elsbeth came to New York to reinvent her life, she wants that for her friend, too. Her friend really had bigger dreams than being a uniform officer. And so when she got the opportunity, she really wanted her friend to seize that opportunity and thrive. So there’s a sadness there, but we do see Kaya. She does come back, and she will come back again. So she’s still a part of the show, just not there every day.

PC: How is Elsbeth doing after everything that she went through in Season 2, between the whole thing with Judge Crawford and going to prison?

Preston: It really did a number on her, this Judge Crawford thing. It was the one that got away. She wasn’t able to bring him to justice in the way that she knew she could. And she saw him murdered in front of her eyes. And so that did a number on her, and it made her question the justice system. And it certainly made her son question the justice system. And she wanted her son to go to law school, and he decides that he’s not going to because of that. But you will see in Season 3, there’s gonna be something from that case that’s gonna rear its head. It’s gonna make Elsbeth kinda stop in her tracks.

Elsbeth Season 3 premieres on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS. The series will go back to its regular slot on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET starting with the second episode of the season on Oct. 16.