Playing the forgiving spouse has been a steep learning curve for ER star Julianna Margulies, she tells Viv Hardwick.

GOLDEN Globe winner Julianna Margulies never thought she would understand what it was like to be a publicly humiliated spouse who stands by her man, until she landed the role of Alicia Florrick, the wife of a politician who is arrested and imprisoned after a sex scandal.

She returns to work to keep the family, and herself, afloat, in the new Channel 4 drama The Good Wife, at 10pm tonight.

On screen, Margulies’ Alicia displays unity with her politician husband (played by Chris Noth) in spite of him getting caught sucking a prostitute’s toes (and who knows where that storyline came from?).

In reality, she says: “My reaction would have been to get the hell out of there.

Until I put myself in her shoes – since I’ve been playing her – everything has changed. And since I’ve had my own child. It’s not just about your feelings. The thing I love about her is that she’s always balancing things. It’s just survival.”

TWO years married Margulies, 43, says she has little in common, on the surface at least, with her character. But, says Josh Charles, who plays Margulies’ former law school classmate and partner at her law firm, “Jules has a quiet confidence and calm that I think radiates really well with this character. There’s the idea of what’s going behind the photo of the woman standing by her man – she’s able to show grace under pressure.”

She had been looking for a show in New York, where she lives with her husband and lawyer, Keith Lieberthal, and their one-year-old son, Kieran. Then along came the script for The Good Wife and Margulies says “I couldn’t stop turning the pages. It’s very timely. What happens to the family? What are the repercussions? What do you say to each other? How do you even relate to each other?”

Having established her character, she still doesn’t have an insight to the answers if her husband had been involved in a torried affair.

“It’s one thing to go through it publicly the way they did, but any way you slice it, it’s awful. I’m madly in love with my husband. I hope vows are taken a little more seriously and you go ‘Can you work this out?’ Especially if you have children. I don’t want anyone to think I’m condoning affairs. I’m not. We’re so quick to judge everybody. But it’s a domino effect.”

Like any new drama series seeking re-commission, there are few clues on whether Alicia and her husband end up staying together long-term.

CBS-made The Good Wife has just been given the go-ahead for season two just as its leading lady picked up The Best TV Actress Drama award at the Golden Globe awards. That’s a boost for Margulies, who remains best-known for her no-nonsense turn as Nurse Carol Hathaway on ER.

Work is important, but Margulies is a mum first. Her hot new accessory?

Not her Chloe bag, but the Dyson hand-vac she uses to clean up after her son’s discarded Cheerios. Margulies says he is adjusting to her being back at work full-time. “He’s still getting used to it. He’s a year and he doesn’t quite understand. He says ‘Mama work.’ And I say ‘Yes, Mama is going to work now.’ When I was leaving today, he waved bye-bye.

Sometimes he gets sad.”

Margulies is still adjusting to working 16-hour days and surviving on four hours of sleep. When she gets overwhelmed, she turns to her friend and TV’s The Closer star Kyra Sedgwick for advice. “Kyra emailed me to say ‘One scene at a time and you’ll get through it. I find the work exhilarating.

I love that I can bring my kid to the show, and I love that weekends are just family,” she says.