Actress Archie Panjabi will depart CBS’ The Good Wife and has signed a development and talent holding deal with 20th Century Fox Television. Under the deal, Panjabi is set to play the lead in a drama pilot for the studio this spring.
Panjabi’s contract to remain on The Good Wife, produced by CBS Television Studios, expires at the end of the current season. She will be the second principal cast member to leave the show in as many seasons. Last season, Josh Charles’ character was killed after the actor asked to leave the show.
The sixth season of The Good Wife premiered Sept. 21 to a 1.4 live-plus-same day Nielsen rating among adults 18-49, down one tenth of a point from its premiere last fall.
“Archie is an amazing actress who helped build Kalinda from the ground up as an enigmatic, powerful, and sexy character,” Good Wife showrunners Robert and Michelle King said in a statement. “It's been a pleasure to write for her, and we'll be sad to see her go; but we still have her for the rest of season six, so let's not exhaust our good-byes yet. We look forward to meeting all the wonderful new characters Archie brings to the screen. But either way, we're keeping the boots.”
Panjabi won a Primetime Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a drama series in 2010 for her work on The Good Wife. She was nominated again in 2011 and 2012. She is represented by Leslie Siebert of the Gersh Agency and Ken Weinrib of Franklin, Weinrib, Rudell & Vassallo.
“Archie is an Emmy-award winning dramatic actress, and rightly so,” said Sharon Klein, executive VP of casting for 20th Century Fox Television. “Her work on The Good Wife has been extraordinary, and the time has come for her to star in a project of her own. We couldn’t be happier that it will be with us.”
