There’s more to her than the miniskirt and boots — but like her elusive character on “The Good Wife,” coaxing out the details is like pulling teeth.
Archie Panjabi is a familiar face to millions and has drawn rave reviews — along with an Emmy — playing the edgy private investigator Kalinda Sharma on the CBS drama.
For now, though, she sits unnoticed in the West Village’s Tea & Sympathy on a recent morning, buttering a scone, dressed simply in chic black slacks and a blouse paired with strappy sandals.
The ensemble is a stark contrast to her character’s provocative outfits and belies the fact that this woman is close enough with Angelina Jolie that she calls the pillow-lipped actress-turned-activist “Angie.”
More on that later.
Panjabi wants to talk about “The Good Wife,” but like her character she keeps secrets and dodges questions about crucial plot lines on “The Good Wife” (Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBS).
When the popular drama is mentioned, Panjabi keeps the conversation general and declines to offer details.
“I love Kalinda’s sex appeal, her leather jackets,” she says. “But when I come home, I have to leave that behind.”
Still, Panjabi has lots to work with when it comes to Kalinda — a bisexual woman who’s as smart as she is sexy. The part has been the role of a lifetime for her.
“A lot of women say to me that it’s nice to see a woman [on TV] who is sexy, and who is strong, and it makes them feel confident in celebrating that about themselves,” says Panjabi, “and what I like about the character is that she’s reflective of all the women in society today.”
“There’s an honesty about her. She does speak her mind! Panjabi adds. “We’re living in a world where everyone is so scared to speak, to be blunt, because they’re fearful of the repercussions, and one of the qualities I really like about [Kalinda] is this ability to say what’s on her mind without causing too many problems.”
It’s what Kalinda says — not what she wears — that matters most to Panjabi. Which explains why the actress almost kicked the character’s signature high boots and miniskirts to the curb early on.
“I wanted to wear jeans and flat shoes,” she laughs, “because I was going to bring out the sexiness in her and her personality later.”
The producers decided to put her charisma — and her looks — front and center, however, so Kalinda began sporting the cropped leather jackets and knee-highs her fans have come to adore.
But in real life, the 41-year-old British-born actress is more of a jeans and T-shirt girl. Not that her low-key attire keeps the fans at bay.
“Sometimes I get recognized on the street, which is a real honor in New York,” she says.
Panjabi, who was raised in London and Mumbai, has spent the last five years of her life living in midtown while filming “The Good Wife” in Greenpoint. In that time, she has embraced all that the cosmopolitan city has to offer, from walking her Lhasa Apso along the Hudson River to noshing in Curry Hill and buying English sweets from the tea shop where she sits today.
Not that she has had much time for her favorite haunts. Besides “The Good Wife,” Panjabi is starring in the moody crime serial “The Fall,” with Gillian Anderson (streaming on Netflix), and has a string of films including “The Widower” and “I Origins” opening in the next few months.
The pathologist she plays on “The Fall” is also decidedly more casual than the woman she plays on “The Good Wife.”
“She is not at all Kalinda 2.0,” she says. “She’s wearing flat shoes, and very loose clothing, and barely any makeup. She’s married with two kids, and she rides a bike. She’s strong and tough, but she’s a lot more domestic than Kalinda.”
So does she personally identify with one over the other?
“I’m a Gemini, so I think there’s a little bit of everything with me,” she muses. “I don’t know what you’re gonna get when the camera comes on.”
But it’s the work Panjabi does when the cameras are off that she takes the most pride in.
Her latest side project is teaming up with Rotary International to raise awareness about World Polio Day on Oct. 24.
She says it’s a cause that’s close to her heart and remembers seeing children crippled by the disease while on her way to school in Mumbai when she was just 10.
“We’re 1% away from eradicating it from the planet forever,” she says, “but if we don’t, it can multiply because it’s very contagious, and could end up infecting the rest of the world. We need to make sure children get that vaccine.”
She took a page from Jolie (whom she met while making the 2007 film “A Mighty Heart), and ventured to remote Indian villages herself to give children the life-saving serum.
“I worked with Angie for several weeks, and she taught me the importance of making a difference,” says Panjabi. “She’s so down-to-earth, so grounded, just a woman of class. She’s an absolute sweetheart, and she really inspired me.”
Jolie, of course, isn’t her only inspiration — Panjabi’s parents were immigrants who shaped her perspective.
“I was inspired by being a woman of color,” she says. “In England I was always seen as bronze, and specific to my culture ... but that just gave me the motivation to say, I want to play a character that has nothing to do with race, who is just an interesting character.
“My mother and father came from India to England. They brought me up to be very broad-minded, so any country that I go to, I respect it,” she adds, “and I guess that’s a little bit of how I take on roles. I make them personal and about a human being, and not about their cultural identity. Those things can be explored later on, but initially, these characters, I want you to accept them for who they are.”
npesce@nydailynews.com
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