By
Gautam Balasundar
Photography by
Peter Ash Lee

Styling by Rebecca Dennett. Hair by Matthew Monzon at Jed Root. Makeup by Min Min Ma at Honey Artists. Photographer’s assistant: Chris Parente.

ROSE LESLIE


In the new CBS All Access show The Good Fight, viewers are introduced to Maia Rindell, a young woman who has just passed the bar exam and lands a job at a prestigious law firm. It’s new, exciting, and a little daunting for Maia, and that’s before her life is swiftly upended by a family scandal. Stepping into the role is Rose Leslie, who herself is exploring uncharted territory, albeit without the chaos Maia endures. Residing in America for the first time while taking on a lead role in a celebrated franchise has given her something to channel into the character, but it’s also given her the momentum to break out as a new star.

Though Leslie is originally from Scotland, she spent enough of her life away to replace her accent with an English one. “I lived in France for about three years from ten to thirteen, so I kind of lost any Scottish accent when I was living there—I had some weird hybrid of a French-English accent,” she says. “Then I went back to Southern England and it was over, I went into the English accent.”

Raised with four siblings, Leslie’s proclivity towards acting may have simply been an effect of being the middle child. “There’s no other member of my family who is in the creative industry, so to speak,” she says. “I’m in the middle, the only ginger, older brother and sister and younger brother and sister. I think I got the bug from not being listened to. I think the middle child syndrome stepped in relatively early and I think I realized I needed to branch out. My [older] brother is intelligent and my sister is very sporty and intelligent, and I must have subliminally gone, Shit, you’re that, you’re that, I want to be something different.

Slip and bra by Araks. Skirt by Christopher Kane.

It didn’t take much for Leslie to pursue the acting path. “It wasn’t like an epiphany that made somebody stand still and go, This is what I need to do,” she explains. “It just felt brilliant, it felt natural, and I wanted to carry on following this particular path of getting up in front of people and performing.” She enrolled in drama school, but even there it was always about performing. “Some of it was theory obviously and some of it was practical, and I just remember only loving the practicality of it, and not really wanting to theorize on a long essay the reasons as to why I wanted to, so then it felt rather innate.”

Drama school helped get her representation, and before long she was getting auditions and small roles. She won a Scottish BAFTA for a television film called New Town, but her most widespread breakthrough came on Downton Abbey, after their costume director happened to see her in a play. As the ambitious housemaid Gwen Dawson, Leslie was part of the main cast of the show during season one. “It was the first television role I had where I knew I was going to be employed for six months,” she recalls. “I was always in bit parts before, but now suddenly it was a six-month gig that was just incredible to me.” Her character ended up representing a major theme in the show, the rise of the working class, and she even made an appearance in the final season as a refined woman unrecognizable to the estate. But Leslie remembers it more for the fond memories it gave her in her early twenties: “I was living in London with girlfriends, and the idea of getting into a car to drive off into the countryside to shoot for a day and have that happen five days a week was awesome.”

Left: Dress by Céline. All rings by Delfina Delettrez.Right: Top by Tibi. Jeans by Alexander Wang. Necklace by Efva Attling.

The snowball effect continued with possibly her most recognizable turn, as Ygritte in Game of Thrones. The main draw for Leslie wasn’t the fantasy element itself but rather a love for the character and writing—not to mention the opportunity to shoot over the course of two years in the idyllic Icelandic landscapes. The relationship between Ygritte and Kit Harington’s Jon Snow initially developed his character, and helped make him one of the most beloved protagonists on the show. However, the romance, action, and drama that surrounded Ygritte turned her into a pivotal, fan-favorite character in her own right, and it was all tied together by a climactic and memorable ending. “It had definitely opened doors,” Leslie says. “I arrived in season two and the momentum for Thrones just builds and builds and builds for years. Certainly by season two it was one hell of a feat to be a part of, for sure.”

With the immense fan base of The Good Wife, Leslie’s leading role in The Good Fight is her most significant to date. Though a large existing audience might seem hard to appease, Leslie is intent on building a new character that just happens to occupy the same world as the continuing ones. “I wanted to approach this role from the character’s perspective, and playing an American helps me step out of my own shoes and really delve into a world that I know rather well, because of having loved The Good Wife, but also because it’s new for her,” she says. “The rug has been pulled from her feet because of the terrifying situation that she finds herself in where her dad is now the head of a Ponzi scheme and has ruined hundreds of thousands of people’s lives. You’re now looking at a very new, harsh reality for Maia, and so I wanted to make sure I stepped into this role from that perspective, rather than freaking myself out in realizing this is still the same universe.”

Dress by Anaak. Bra by Araks.

Even beyond character studies, The Good Fight doesn’t shy away from pressing social and political issues; the series even opens with Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski reprising her role) watching the inauguration of Donald Trump. “There’s an element of accountability with every single episode, and that is something that I find incredibly bold and really exciting to watch,” Leslie says. “A couple of episodes ago, my character was dealing with fake news. Realizing the catastrophic domino effect it has with some people, it jeopardizes Maia’s career. And yet by holding up a mirror, I’m rather frightened by the momentum fake news is gathering, because suddenly what world are we living in where truth is no longer relevant? And so with that in an episode, that is hopefully going to highlight the situation to people who are possibly unaware of the events that can affect people in everyday life.” 
 
“Maia was a character who was ostracized from what she knew, and she didn’t necessarily conform, she was forced into a situation and that was something that filled me with excitement,” Leslie explains. “Because there’s no control, her second chances are unpredictable and that’s exciting hopefully to watch as a member of the audience, but to play that’s brilliant because it means there is no routine.” After her distinctive roles in Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, playing a modern woman in New York is the exact kind of new situation that Leslie revels in with appreciation. Her roles have only become increasingly prominent thus far, but if there’s one thing that makes her interesting to watch, it’s that she won’t likely stick to a routine anytime soon.

The Good Wife continues on Sundays on CBS All Access.

Left: Dress by Erdem.Right: Slip and bra by Araks. Skirt by Christopher Kane. Boots by Céline.
By
Gautam Balasundar
Photography by
Peter Ash Lee

Styling by Rebecca Dennett. Hair by Matthew Monzon at Jed Root. Makeup by Min Min Ma at Honey Artists. Photographer’s assistant: Chris Parente.

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