Why Julianna Margulies Refused to Accept a Role in Delia Ephron's Broadway Play Until After the First Table Read (Exclusive)

Julianna Margulies was walking her dog in her New York City neighborhood in 2021 when fate intervened and she crossed paths with best-selling author, screenwriter and playwright Delia Ephron. It turned out Ephron was a fan of Margulies' new memoir, Sunshine Girl, and had an upcoming book of her own that she wanted the actress to take a look at. Margulies happily obliged.

Now that book, Left on Tenth, which sees Ephron grappling with the back-to-back deaths of her sister (Nora Ephron) and husband from cancer, as well as her own cancer diagnosis, is a Broadway play. It stars, you guessed it, Julianna Margulies.

"It’s just a very strange confluence of events," Margulies old Parade in an exclusive interview. "Two years [after we met], in January [2024], she emailed me and said, 'I wrote my memoir into a play and I’d love you to portray me.' I was floored and I said, ‘Oh, my God, how on earth did you write that play?’ Anyone who has read the memoir knows that it makes a major impact.”

Ultimately, the book (and now the play) is a later-in-life love story about second chances, with Peter Gallagher (The OC) starring as Ephron's love interest and eventual second husband, also named Peter. What starts as an unlikely spark between the pair after the deaths of their respective spouses blossoms into a great romance.

“It is a romantic comedy with a lot of trauma that comes out on the other side,” Margulies told Parade. “This is about seeing that there is the idea of hope and jumping onto that boat of hope and coming out the other side victorious, which I find so inspiring.”

"You walk out feeling like there’s hope," the Good Wife actress continued, "and I think all of us could use that right now.”

Keep reading for more from Margulies on bringing Left on Tenth to the stage.

Debra Wallace: When did you personally become aware of Delia Ephron?

Julianna Margulies: [In] 2014, when I read an op-ed in The New York Times by Delia talking about The Good Wife and how it wasn’t about [the characters] Will and Alicia, it was about my character, Alicia, and what she needed. And it was so hilarious because it was when Will got shot and [Delia] couldn’t take it because she wanted Will and Alicia to be together. I remember turning to my husband and saying to him, “I’ve made it. I’m in the Ephron orbit.”

What was your reaction when you read Left on Tenth? I sobbed through it.

Sobbed, right? Laughed and cried. I just thought, How on earth is she going to get all these feelings from that book onto the stage? She emailed me the PDF of her play, and I read it in one sitting, of course. Then I emailed her and I said, “I don’t know how you’ve managed to do it, but every single beat in the book is in the play.” Every roller coaster of emotion, from absolute euphoria and romance to absolute devastation and near death. It's just remarkable.

And then I said, “The only way I can accept playing you is if you hear a reading of it because it’s so special.” I said, “I’m taking all ego out of this, I’m saying this as someone who’s your biggest fan. If you hear me read it at the table [reading] and it’s not the voice you were picturing, you have to tell me because this play has to be done right.” And she said, “Well, that’s sweet.” I told her, “I’m not being sweet, I’m being serious, as someone who wants to protect you from anything going wrong with this play.” And so, we did a reading of it.

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Do you personally believe in second chances in life and love?

I do. Why shouldn’t we? Peter Gallagher has this beautiful line where he says, “Why can’t you mourn the loss of love, but also celebrate the excitement of a new love? Look, life is pain, right? Life is going through the ups and downs, there’s no smooth-sailing through life.”

We all feel loss and love, and I do believe in second chances. I think it’s a beautiful way to look at life. It’s like if you look at a flower—when the flower dies it drops its seeds into the soil and a new one begins. That’s the cycle of life.

How are you handling the emotional scenes?

I think, honestly, it’s about pulling back from the emotion because the emotional scenes are so deep. I can’t drown in the emotion of it even though some of the scenes are extremely emotional. I have to manage the temperature of that emotion to let the audience be emotional for me. So right now, it’s a balancing act of not diving too deep into it so that it drowns me, because I can go there, and I don’t want to.

What does the legacy of Delia and Nora Ephron’s romantic comedies— including You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle—mean to you?

Oh, to me it’s untouchable. I’m still blown away that [Delia and Nora] came up with these classics. To get Delia really under my skin, I’ve been re-reading everything she’s ever written. So, all in a row I read her novels Siracusa and Big City Eyes, and now I’m re-reading Hanging Up. If you haven’t read it in a while, I highly recommend it, on top of all her essays on life and change.

I don’t know how they did it. They were born under some spell of magic when it comes to romantic comedy and allowing a romantic comedy to move you to tears. I wish I knew how to write like that. I also think their rare connection as sisters made for a shared language.

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Delia has such courage to be so personal. 

You know, it’s not just courage; it’s so raw. She’s so transparent and incredibly vulnerable. She also talks honestly about sex, and that sex was such a huge part of the attraction and the magic that she found with Peter after [her first husband] Jerry died before her diagnosis. She talks so honestly. I think what made her memoir, and what will make this play so memorable, is her ability to be so raw and at the same time to be so objective.

Left on Tenth is currently playing at the James Earl Jones Theatre on Broadway Through Sunday, Feb. 2. Delia Ephron’s best-selling memoir of the same name is also available.

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