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"Julianna Margulies loves a strong second act. When she first read the script for the CBS hit The Good Wife, a ripped-from-the-headlines drama about a woman who stands by her cheating man, she must have thought, Are you kidding? How could I play that?! But the role of Alicia Florrick, a whip-smart attorney who is rebuilding the career she put on hold to be a stay-at-home mom and politician&amp;#039;s wife, also promised juicy twists and turns. Margulies\u2014who endeared herself to America as nurse Carol Hathaway on ER in the nineties\u2014took a risk and said yes. And what a wise decision it was: Over the past four seasons, Margulies&amp;#039; performance has won her an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and two SAG Awards, as well as legions of new fans. And The Good Wife, a show about starting life over, has helped its star do just that. In the five years or so after she left ER in 2000 (turning down $27 million for two more seasons), the quietly confident actress, now 46, played the fame game by her own rules, appearing onstage and making independent films. And while not &amp;quot;making it big&amp;quot; in Hollywood terms during that time, Margulies was setting up her own personal second act. It was one that would surprise even the once marriage-shy actress: Now wife to handsome attorney Keith Lieberthal and mom to their son, Kieran, 5, Margulies savors a life that is every bit as happy as it is hectic. The shift hasn&amp;#039;t been without its bumps: Margulies has had to learn to manage some serious type A tendencies, balance an about-to-explode schedule, and make the most of her precious family time. But this particular moment reflects who she is and always has been: a woman who&amp;#039;s stayed true to her principles and who believes it&amp;#039;s never too late to find happiness if you trust in yourself and are willing to take a chance. &amp;quot;If you don&amp;#039;t risk something, you&amp;#039;re not going to gain anything,&amp;quot; she says with conviction. &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re honest with yourself, then things have a way of working out. I feel very grateful that I had the courage to say no when I did and say yes when I could, that I waited to find the right mate and to have this little family.&amp;quot; She smiles radiantly. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s something about this time in my life where I feel like it&amp;#039;s never going to get better.&amp;quot; Her Personal Prime Time Of course, as Margulies has learned from playing a lawyer for the past four years, even the best-case scenarios can be tempered by complicating circumstances. For her, it&amp;#039;s that common ailment, Working Mom Fatigue. Settling into a plush pink sofa at New York City&amp;#039;s Crosby Street Hotel, a short walk from her downtown home, she immediately orders a latte and a bottle of water. Though she looks well rested and Saturday-afternoon stylish in a black sweater, burgundy skinny jeans, and boots, Margulies reveals that she has rarely slept more than five hours a night since Kieran was born. She recently e-mailed her pal Mariska Hargitay, a former ER cast mate and now a mother of three, asking how she coped. Hargitay replied, Honey, I hear you, but there is no secret. You&amp;#039;re just always tired. That confession made Margulies, who keeps a to-do list on her cell phone and frets about not always being able to be there for everyone, feel better. &amp;quot;The most challenging part of being a mother is that when you&amp;#039;re really tired, everything sucks,&amp;quot; Margulies confesses candidly. &amp;quot;What I like about being a mother who is not 20 years old is that I know that these are fleeting moments.&amp;quot; Even so, last night, like many moms, she had an anxiety dream: She was stuck in traffic in a cab on the way back from taking her son to a birthday party and was going to be late for this interview. &amp;quot;I couldn&amp;#039;t find a phone to call anyone,&amp;quot; she says, the panic mounting in her voice. &amp;quot;I am never late. There is no room for error in my life.&amp;quot; She woke up so rattled that Lieberthal offered to take Kieran to the party so Mom could go to the gym, which she hadn&amp;#039;t been able to do all week, and put in five miles on the treadmill. Margulies gratefully accepted. &amp;quot;So many times you hear about mothers and wives who put themselves last, and then those marriages crumble. Why? Because they don&amp;#039;t value themselves,&amp;quot; she says. Although she felt a bit guilty about missing the party, she explains, &amp;quot;I knew that if I didn&amp;#039;t go to the gym today, I wouldn&amp;#039;t be the greatest mom at dinnertime. So I chose to come first in that moment. Then my family can come first in the next.&amp;quot; A balanced life\u2014taking care of yourself so you can take care of others\u2014is crucial, Margulies emphasizes. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m also hard on myself,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I live at a very high stress level and take everything too personally. And I worry about the amount of time I spend at work, for sure.&amp;quot; She has been working on how to let that go. Accepting help when it&amp;#039;s offered, dialing down the mommy guilt, and burning off stress with exercise have been helpful. Having a sense of humor about herself is key: &amp;quot;The other day I said to Kieran, &amp;#039;If I were home all the time, you would hate me,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says with a grin. Despite this joke, family time is what anchors Margulies. In addition to Thanksgiving, she hosts an annual Mother&amp;#039;s Day brunch at her country house in upstate New York. &amp;quot;Usually I sleep in a little, and I get a lot of kisses,&amp;quot; she says of the day&amp;#039;s celebration, which includes one of her sisters and her parents, who live nearby. Marry? Who, me? Margulies felt quite certain that she was &amp;quot;not the marrying kind.&amp;quot; Her mother had an unusual perspective. &amp;quot;She said, &amp;#039;Oh, honey, every woman should get married. I loved being married. And I have you three girls. Just try it at least once,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Margulies recalls, cracking up. She still wasn&amp;#039;t convinced that kind of love was in the cards for her. What changed her mind, she says, and brought her to the altar at 41, &amp;quot;was meeting someone I could actually imagine spending my life with. And, as corny as it sounds, it&amp;#039;s the little things, not the big things, that make the marriage. Because anyone can be hot and sexy and have a fun night, but when you look forward to waking up together, that&amp;#039;s someone you probably want to be with for the rest of your life.&amp;quot; She met that someone in 2006, just days after spending Valentine&amp;#039;s Day alone and perfectly happy. &amp;quot;I had been in relationships that weren&amp;#039;t really working and decided I needed to live as a person who wasn&amp;#039;t trying to constantly take care of everyone,&amp;quot; Margulies explains of her decision to focus on taking care of herself. &amp;quot;I always say to friends who haven&amp;#039;t found love that until you are completely content by yourself, you&amp;#039;re not going to find it. You&amp;#039;re going to be searching too hard.&amp;quot; Love found her at a friend&amp;#039;s birthday party. With rehearsals for her first Broadway play starting the next day, Margulies went there with a plan: &amp;quot;Stay for one drink, then skedaddle.&amp;quot; Enter dark-haired, blue-eyed Keith Lieberthal, who struck her as rather too good-looking. &amp;quot;I said to him, &amp;#039;Listen, I&amp;#039;m going to be leaving in 10 minutes because I&amp;#039;m sure you&amp;#039;re an actor and I have sworn off [your type],&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she recalls, smiling. &amp;quot;And he said, &amp;#039;Well, that&amp;#039;s good. I&amp;#039;m a lawyer.&amp;#039; Then he poured me a big glass of red wine, I stayed the entire dinner\u2014and that was it.&amp;quot; After six months of dinner dates, she knew that if he asked her to marry him, she would say yes. He proposed in Paris, and shortly thereafter, Margulies discovered she was going to have a baby. In November 2007, she proudly walked down the aisle. &amp;quot;People say the day their child is born is the best day of their life. I mean, I was grateful Kieran was healthy, but it hurt!&amp;quot; she says, laughing loudly. &amp;quot;The best day of my life was my wedding day, and I think so much of it had to do with the fact that I had our [unborn] son with me and the rabbi blessed him.&amp;quot; Margulies wore a custom wedding gown by Narciso Rodriguez. &amp;quot;I was the only bride who didn&amp;#039;t diet before her wedding,&amp;quot; she cracks. She has one small regret: &amp;quot;I still haven&amp;#039;t had a bachelorette party. I&amp;#039;m not interested in a lap dance, but I do need a little hen time with my girlfriends, to get massages and facials and to talk.&amp;quot; On January 17, 2008, Margulies welcomed her son, Kieran Lindsay Lieberthal. She treasures the two men in her life: &amp;quot;I married a rock, who understands what I do without any resentment. And I&amp;#039;ve got a joyful, easy kid.&amp;quot; Next:  The Good Marriage Margulies carves out time for date nights. &amp;quot;My husband&amp;#039;s a foodie, and I love being taken to restaurants,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;So it works out quite well.&amp;quot; Not only does Lieberthal share her values, but he can always calm her when she is being hard on herself. &amp;quot;Recently, I couldn&amp;#039;t be at school to read a story, but Keith could. I was saying, &amp;#039;I feel like a failure!&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she recalls. He quickly convinced her that their kid was just fine. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s my barometer for guilt,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;He always sets me straight.&amp;quot; And she, in turn, strives to be a truthful but gentle partner. Playing the &amp;quot;good wife,&amp;quot; says Margulies, has made her a better spouse in real life. She has learned to hold her tongue, one of the traits that make Alicia Florrick such a successful lawyer and fascinating character. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s better to think before you speak,&amp;quot; Margulies says. &amp;quot;And as our moms always said, &amp;#039;If you don&amp;#039;t have anything nice to say, don&amp;#039;t say anything at all.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; There is, however, a little thing\u2014every marriage has one\u2014she&amp;#039;s told Lieberthal so often that it&amp;#039;s almost a running joke. &amp;quot;When you wash a wineglass, turn it rim down when it&amp;#039;s drying,&amp;quot; she says, feigning exasperation. &amp;quot;If the rim is up, I don&amp;#039;t know if it&amp;#039;s washed or not!&amp;quot; Of Faith and Family Though she was raised more Christian than Jewish, Margulies is raising Kieran in the latter faith, that of his father. &amp;quot;I would say if I had a religion, it would be gratitude. There&amp;#039;s something beautiful about saying blessings to acknowledge we have food on the table,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I love the tradition of Judaism that on Friday nights, Shabbat means &amp;#039;Goodbye to the workweek; hello to family and the weekend.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Since The Good Wife entered her life, Margulies isn&amp;#039;t always home as early as she&amp;#039;d like on Friday nights. So now, on Saturdays, even if she&amp;#039;s worked into the early morning, her ritual is to pack up the family and head to their house in the country. &amp;quot;Just the three of us, without cell phones or computers, just turning the world off\u2014that&amp;#039;s our salvation,&amp;quot; she sighs dreamily. There, the family takes long walks through the woods and plays football and basketball. Margulies also loves shopping for local produce, trying new recipes from Ina Garten or the Silver Palate Cookbook, and baking her favorite chocolate-dipped macaroons (see recipe below). Kieran helps Mom in the kitchen. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been reading him cookbooks since he was born,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s a great eater. He loves brown rice, chickpeas, carrots, and broccoli. I got really lucky with this kid, which is why I think we&amp;#039;re going to have just one, because I can&amp;#039;t imagine that happening again. I don&amp;#039;t know if I could handle a brat,&amp;quot; Margulies says honestly, adding that she and Lieberthal are strict about manners. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t bear whining.&amp;quot; You won&amp;#039;t catch Margulies whining, that&amp;#039;s for sure. With a laugh, she recalls a trip to a Broadway musical with a friend from out of town. As the lights went down, she felt a wave of queasiness wash over her. &amp;quot;It was obviously the stomach flu,&amp;quot; she explains, &amp;quot;which my son had had the week before.&amp;quot; Luckily her friend, who had just flown in with her kids, had an airsickness bag in her purse and handed it to Margulies, who scampered out of the theater in search of a taxi home. The cabdriver was talkative, asking her about New Year&amp;#039;s resolutions. Racked with nausea, she muttered that she didn&amp;#039;t really make resolutions. Yes, but you must have dreams, he persisted. &amp;quot;So,&amp;quot; she continues, laughing, &amp;quot;I threw up a little, then said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m living the dream. I have an amazing husband; a healthy, beautiful, sweet child; and my dream job\u2014and I live in the best city in the world.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; As they sped downtown, Margulies recalls, everything clicked for her: Yes, she thought, I&amp;#039;m tired. I&amp;#039;m sick. Yes, it&amp;#039;s hard. I&amp;#039;m always torn between different responsibilities\u2014but that&amp;#039;s my life, and I am living the dream. Time has taught her that second acts are indeed possible. &amp;quot;I try not to worry about the future, because I only have control over this minute,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to be a &amp;#039;shoulda-coulda-woulda&amp;#039; kind of person.&amp;quot; She pauses a moment, then adds with a smile, &amp;quot;Right now, just getting through a long day when I&amp;#039;ve been up since 5 A.M. and worked for 14 hours, then got home and cooked dinner\u2014to me, that&amp;#039;s a really, really good day.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s hard, I&amp;#039;m always torn between responsibilities, but I am living my dream.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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