Emmy Winner Margo Martindale Previews A Gifted Man: 'Patrick Wilson is Fantastic!'

Broadway vet Margo Martindale began her week as a 2011 Emmy winner for playing a murderous moonshiner on Justified, and she’ll end it with the September 23 premiere of A Gifted Man, the CBS series in which plays Patrick Wilson’s loyal executive assistant. “It’s been beyond fun,” Martindale told Broadway.com from the set of the NYC-based drama. “I got back to work yesterday, and they had balloons and roses and a signed poster on my door. Everybody gave me a standing ovation, and at the end of the night they wheeled in a huge cake with an Emmy in the middle of it.”

So, why should America spend Friday night watching A Gifted Man? “Because of Patrick Wilson,” Martindale said. “Patrick Wilson is fantastic! Talk about gracious—he is a great actor, and the perfect person to lead a show.” A medical drama about a neurosurgeon (Wilson) whose conscience is pricked through visits from his dead wife (two-time Tony winner Jennifer Ehle), the new series touches on a number of hot-button topics.

“It's about how spiritual healing is part of medicine,” Martindale explained, “and [stories of] people without insurance juxtaposed with people who have tons of money in a concierge practice. It’s got a lot of stuff going on, and it’s jam-packed with theater actors, which is really cool. Faith Prince has been in the one we’re doing now, Aaron Lazar was in an episode, Raul Esparza is doing an arc, Pablo Schreiber—it’s a great group.”

With hundreds of congratulatory e-mails and texts from directors, producers, casting directors “and my entire high school class” to respond to, Martindale doesn’t have time to fret over a broken statuette: “We put the Emmy in my husband’s luggage for the trip back. When we got it out, the globe had come off, and there was a note saying, ‘This bag has been inspected.’ I guess they thought it was a weapon!”