Julianna Margulies is the face of “The Good Wife,” the celebrated CBS drama that ends its seven-season run on May 8. But the series owes much of its quirky charm to top-notch recurring characters, a host of clients, lawyers, judges and other friends and enemies of Alicia Florrick and the firm Lockhart/Gardner.

A number of guest stars have gotten Emmy nominations for their roles, with Martha Plimpton and Carrie Preston taking home trophies in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Alan Cumming became a series regular after several guest turns as political adviser Eli Gold (a role that, fun fact, was originally meant for Nathan Lane).

“Every other casting director I come in contact with says to me, ‘How do you get these people?’,” said casting director Mark Saks. “I think it’s really the writing and the reputation of the show.”

“The Good Wife” also stands out because unlike most long-running shows, recurring characters have been consistently revisited throughout the series.

“It’s always fun to find those people later on in life and see what they’re doing, because it resembles life,” Saks said. “You lose touch with people and then you reconnect.”

We’ve ranked the show’s most compelling recurring characters, starting with our favorites.

THE WEIRDO LAWYERS

Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston); Josh Perotti (Kyle MacLachlan)

You might assume Elsbeth is crazy: She gets distracted by sparkles and kittens and can’t figure out how to work her laptop. But she’s also a brilliant lawyer and helps get Peter and Alicia out of various legal scrapes. Her brain simply zigs when everyone else’s zags (sometimes with musical accompaniment). Plus, her opponents underestimate her. Josh is another equally wacky but killer lawyer. Of course, these two weirdos fall in love.

THE (ALMOST CERTAINLY) GUILTY CLIENT

Colin Sweeney (Dylan Baker)

We meet Lockhart/Gardner’s creepiest client ahead of a civil trial for the murder of his wife. Colin wins but resurfaces in a number of cases that are chillingly similar. He remains suspiciously nonchalant, and upon meeting Alicia for the first time, he extends a hand and says, “Don’t worry, I killed her with my other hand.” Baker’s last appearance found him playing both Colin and an actor named Jerome Morris, who played a TV character that looked and sounded a lot like Colin, leading to a defamation suit. Baker received Emmy nominations in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

THE SASSY DAUGHTER

Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele)

Marissa is Eli’s candid daughter, known for sardonic one-liners. When we first meet her, she’s pitching her father on her plans to move to a kibbutz in Israel. “You’re so cute when you’re being emphatic,” she tells him, impersonating him as he furrows his brow. Despite her father’s disapproval, Marissa moves to Israel, but luckily for us, she comes back in Season 6 as Alicia’s body woman during her run for state’s attorney. She has a tendency to steal scenes, and it’s always fun to watch Steele and Cumming play off each other. “We never auditioned Sarah Steele,” Saks said. “I had one idea, and it was her.”

THE DRUG KINGPIN

Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter)

Lemond Bishop is a dangerous criminal and really good at covering his tracks, using legitimate businesses to launder money and getting henchmen to kill anyone who might get in his way. Colter makes Lemond appear pleasant on the surface,even as rage bubbles underneath. He’s one of the most anxiety-inducing characters on the show.

THE FAMILY MEMBERS

Veronica Loy (Stockard Channing); Owen Cavanaugh (Dallas Roberts)

The first time we see Owen, Alicia’s younger brother, one of his students starts filming him and asks if he sees his sister a lot. No, Owen admits: “I think it’s because her husband is uncomfortable that I’m gay.” The clip ends up online and threatens to hurt husband Peter’s state’s attorney’s race, but Alicia isn’t mad. She knows he’s just upset that Peter cheated on her. Owen frequently shows up unannounced at Alicia’s door with their mother, Veronica, who gets under Alicia’s skin.

THE FRENEMIES

Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox); Clarke Hayden (Nathan Lane)

Upon first meeting, the always-cunning Louis tricks Alicia into being late for court. The face-off sets the tone for many interactions over the years. Louis also suffers from tardive dyskinesia – which causes involuntary body movements – and uses his condition to earn sympathy from judges and juries. Fox owns the unabashedly manipulative role, probably because the executive producers tailored it to him after he said he’d love to be on the show. They “always believed that Michael J. Fox would be a great bad guy, and they really wanted to make him the devil,” Saks said. Another frenemy? Clarke, the trustee hired to dig Lockhart/Gardner out of its financial woes, though he is just shifty enough to cause suspicion.

THE POLITICAL OPPONENT

Wendy Scott-Carr (Anika Noni Rose)

Who wouldn’t have loved Wendy as state’s attorney – or Rose as a series regular, with her cool, calm, impossible-to-stop-watching demeanor? She’s beyond qualified and a serious threat to Peter’s campaign. Her opponents’ moves backfire – such as when they find out Wendy had plastic surgery, but Wendy reveals it’s because she had breast cancer.

THE STRANGE JUDGES

Judge Richard Cuesta (David Paymer); Judge Charles Abernathy (Denis O’Hare); Judge Patrice Lessner (Ana Gasteyer)

We meet the cranky Cuesta in the pilot. Next is the honorable Charles Abernathy, who is sometimes accused of ruling based on his conspicuously liberal ideology and once stunned the courtroom by asking for “a moment of silence for the recent mass killings in Darfur.” And we’d be remiss not to mention the memorable (in our opinion) Judge Lessner, who takes courtroom etiquette very seriously.

THE YOUNG NEMESIS

Nancy Crozier (Mamie Gummer)

“What happened?” a stunned Will Gardner, who co-founded the firm, asks Alicia when they lose a motion to Nancy, a seemingly ditzy young lawyer. “Cute, perky, 26 just happened,” Alicia dryly replies. While judges are charmed by Nancy’s adorkable demeanor and tendency to express shock at dirty details of a case (she’s just a simple girl from Michigan, as she frequently reminds the jury), Nancy is one of the firm’s toughest opponents.

THE SCARY LAWYER

Patti Nyholm (Martha Plimpton)

The manipulative Patti will stop at nothing to destroy people – and she uses her babies and pregnancies as handy weapons, distracting judges with infant cuteness and suing her law firm for discrimination when it fires her. She’s also brutally efficient in court and is particularly talented at messing with Alicia’s head.

THE ASA

Geneva Pine (Renée Elise Goldsberry)

It’s not easy being an assistant state’s attorney in Chicago – especially when you go up against Lockhart/Gardner. But Geneva is an excellent opponent and doesn’t like compromise, which results in some fierce battles.

THE LOVE INTERESTS

Finn Polmar (Matthew Goode); Jason Crouse (Jeffrey Dean Morgan); Johnny Elfman (Steven Pasquale)

Jason may be all kinds of sketchy, and his past is somewhat of a mystery – but one look at his sly smile and Alicia was gone. He’s the only one who spurred Alicia to actually cut the cord and get a divorce from Peter. Other past loves include Finn, who was injured in the gun violence that killed Will. Although major sparks flew between Finn and Alicia, nothing ever happened. Johnny, a staffer on Alicia’s campaign, became an essential one-night stand when she couldn’t date Finn.

THE INVESTIGATOR

Andrew Wiley (Tim Guinee)

He went to the state’s attorney’s office to renew his interest in being a professional snoop, though he was often bogged down by kids since he’s also a stay-at-home dad. He schedules meetings at playgrounds and his ringtone is “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” but he’s a stellar investigator.

THE NSA GUYS

Jeff Dellinger (Zach Woods); Stephen Dinovera (Michael Urie)

Jeff is the self-styled “poor man’s Edward Snowden,” an NSA contractor who accidentally took home a flash drive containing confidential information. Alicia and her colleague Cary Agos took Jeff on as a client and decided his best defense would be to say he was a whistleblower. Some of the best NSA scenes also feature Jeff’s former colleague, Stephen, who tries to maintain an air of professionalism amid co-workers who like to send each other videos of screaming goats.

THE GIRLFRIEND

Becca (Dreama Walker)

Sixteen-year-old Becca was infatuated with 14-year-old Zach Florrick, perhaps because his dad became famous for a sex tape – she quotes it sometimes, just for fun. Two-faced beyond measure, she’s all sugar and sweet to Zach’s grandma but then starts an anonymous Twitter account where she tweets details of Peter and Alicia’s home life.

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