Julianna Margulies' Wigs On The Good Wife Cost A Pretty Penny

Julianna Margulies has gone through a stunning transformation in her life and career, including having major roles on hit TV shows. It's not exactly surprising that long-running network shows she starred in, like "ER" and "The Good Wife," had huge budgets. Still, when you begin to itemize the cost of individual props and costume pieces, it's amazing how much it cost to keep the glam for Margulies' character on "The Good Wife," Alicia Florrick, gorgeous and consistent.

During a 2015 episode of "The Late Show with David Letterman," host David Letterman expressed surprise to learn that Margulies wore a wig while playing Alicia, only to be shocked to learn that the price of the natural hair piece cost $10,000. "It's [an] amazing process to sit for a really good wig," the "The Morning Show" star said during the discussion. "People are usually scared of them because they're usually cheap." 

At first, she didn't want to name the price of her wig, but Letterman began estimating figures. He started at $100 and kept going up in consecutive intervals before Margulies confirmed that the hair on her head on the show was $10,000. "You got your money's worth there," Letterman said when he got over his shock. Although the price may be jaw-dropping, celebrities like Nicole Kidman are known for wearing (sometimes bad) wigs on camera. Plus, huge pop stars and even the Kardashians embrace fake hair often.

Julianna Margulies was in her early 40s when "The Good Wife" premiered in 2009. It may be hard to understand why she'd need a wig to play a politician's wife, until you consider that Alicia Florrick's story was supposed to mirror that of Silda Wall Spitzer, whose ex-husband Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, was caught in a cheating scandal. Alicia was supposed to physically resemble Silda, too. But a 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter explained that Margulies' hair was curly, and executives on "The Good Wife" wanted it to be straight.

Margulies was a busy new mom who had welcomed a son the year before, so she fought to wear a wig instead of coming into work two hours before her co-stars to have her hair straightened. Margulies told THR that the network put up a fight because of how much it would cost, but eventually gave in. Plus, in the long run, the wig was actually a smart investment because it cost less than the hairstyling services that would've been needed to straighten her hair every day. " ... they realized how much time and money it saved, because continuity was easy," Margulies added. "My hair wasn't frizzing. It was a wig."

Margulies is now an advocate for wearing wigs on every show she can in order to protect her natural hair. "When you do that many episodes, you're there for 14 hours a day. It just kills your hair," she told THR of working in television. "They're always coming at you with heat or whatever. When it's a series, I always want a wig from now on. The wear and tear on your hair is brutal."