Christine Baranski Upon Learning The Good Fight Was Ending: 'My Heart Dropped'

Actress Christine Baranski, who has played the character of Diane Lockhart for 13 years between The Good Wife and The Good Fight, says she was "stunned" when she learned that The Good Fight's sixth season would be its last.

In a new interview with TVLine, Baranski describes being informed of the show's end by creators Robert and Michelle King at the end of a day she spent filming one of said season's episodes. “I had finished a marvelous workday with John Slattery and Gary Cole — I didn’t know what was coming," Baranski explains. "By the time I got home, Robert and Michelle called me and told me it’s going to be the end… I was stunned. My heart dropped… "

"Robert and Michelle wanted to end it while they could still control the narrative," Baranski says, noting that it wasn't clear whether Paramount+ was commited to continuing the show past Season 6. "Robert and Michelle didn’t want to learn that the show was being pulled without having the narrative control to bring it to an end. Which can often happen."

Baranski says she had some initial worries that coming to this decision halfway through filming the season would be too late to stage a fitting ending. "My concern was that we didn’t have enough narrative real estate to actually do a proper ending, because the decision to end the show was made halfway through."

The announcement that Season 6 would be the end for The Good Fight came in late May, and the season premieres its first episode on September 8th.

One piece of encouraging news is that Baranski leaves the door open for a possible return to the Diane Lockhart role. "I suppose so," she says. "At the moment I’m going to finish up on Gilded Age. And then I’m going to take a vacation. But never say never." An Diane Lockhart-Alicia Florrick reunion movie in 2027? Fingers crossed!

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.