All Rise: Sarah Steele Is Now in Session

The actress reflects back on a decade growing up with her character... • [All Rise: Sarah Steele Is Now in Session](#toc_item_0) • [Read the full story](#toc_item_1) • [The Good Fight](#toc_item_2) • [Big things in small packages](#toc_item_3) • [Life changing](#toc_item_4) • [Her big break](#toc_item_5) • [Legends](#toc_item_6) • [Her calling](#toc_item_7) [( [] [All Rise: Sarah Steele Is Now in Session]( We got cocktails in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Sarah Steele, the fan-favorite star of Paramount+'s The Good Fight, to talk about her career and the hit series coming to an end. [] [Read the full story]( [( [] [The Good Fight]( [( Photo by Cole Saladino for Thrillist By "cosmic" circumstance, as Sarah Steele puts it, the sweltering August day we meet in Greenpoint became a tiny farewell party not just for the coming end of The Good Fight, but to say goodbye to the neighborhood itself. The Paramount+ legal drama's soundstage, tucked away in an industrial pocket not far from the imposing, bulbous silhouette of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, was a seven-minute walk from her boyfriend's apartment. The following day, he'd move into her Brooklyn Heights co-op. "I love Greenpoint and we've had such a fun, free portion," Steele tells me over cocktails and a vegetarian bowl at the custom birch-paneled record bar Eavesdrop, not even a full block away from one of her favorite classic Greenpoint haunts, Five Leaves, at the northern tip of McCarren Park. "We lived half of our life in this neighborhood." [] [Big things in small packages]( [( [] [Life changing]( [( Photo by Cole Saladino for Thrillist Over the past 11 years, the 33-year-old Steele has been trekking to North Brooklyn to play Marissa Gold in both The Good Fight, which just began streaming its sixth and final season, and The Good Wife, its Emmy-winning progenitor starring Julianna Margulies as the titular wife resuscitating her dormant legal career. Initially, Steele was cast as Marissa, the wisecracking 18-year-old daughter of Alan Cumming's political strategist Eli Gold, for a two-episode arc in Season 2 during a time in her life where she already felt detached and jaded about the business. "When you don't care about showbiz is when you get your best opportunities," quips Steele, who manages to fit magnanimous energy, deferential humility, and self-assured confidence into her 5'0" frame. A student at Columbia University, she had just returned from Seattle, where she was hanging out in the experimental theater scene and riding a feeling of creative liberation when the audition opportunity popped up on her phone while she was walking out of a yoga class. "I said, 'Okay, this fits into my Christmas break,'" Steele sasses in evoking her younger self. "I think I walked in with a real Marissa Gold confidence that I don't necessarily naturally possess, but I was just having a moment where I was like, 'I don't even care about mainstream art,' and I walked in not giving a fuck, and I got the job, of course." [] [Her big break]( [( [] [Legends]( [( Photo by Cole Saladino for Thrillist It would have been impossible for Steele to predict that she'd be surrounded by acting legends—Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald, Delroy Lindo, Mandy Patinkin, and many more—for all of her 20s and change, but she knew she wanted to act by the time she was 8 years old, when she overheard a kid in the school cafeteria talking about taking acting classes. "I just had a jolt in my whole body where I was like, 'That's it. That's what I'm supposed to be doing,'" remembers Steele, her body shooting up straight as if reliving the moment all over again. "I was like, 'I'm done with ballet. I'm done with sports. This is my thing. I know it.'" [] [Her calling]( [( Thrillist Editorial - Favorable reviews cannot be bought. Read our [Terms & Conditions](, [Privacy Policy]( Delivered by Thrillist.com, 568 Broadway, Suite 507, New York, NY 10012 [212.966.2263]( Sent to {EMAIL}. Add themove@newsletter.thrillist.com to your safe-sender list so our emails get to your inbox. [View On The Web]( [Content Settings]( [Unsubscribe](