From the beginning of the series, one major plot point of The Good Wife was Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) balancing raising her children with re-joining the work force after her politician husband Peter (Chris Noth) was jailed for a sex scandal. That made Florrick kids Zach (Graham Phillips) and Grace (Makenzie Vega) main characters on the legal drama, at least until later seasons, when they both became recurring.
Phillips was 16 and Vega was 15 when the show premiered in 2009, meaning that the young actors spent their final teen years playing the most impressionable members of one of TV's most dysfunctional political families. Read on to find out what they've been up to since The Good Wife's 2016 finale.
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Phillips started out on the stage.
John Lamparski/WireImagePrior to playing Alicia's tech-savvy son, Phillips had already made his stage, film, and small screen debuts. His first film role was in the 2004 Christmas movie Noel, and he'd go on to appear in Evan Almighty, Blockers, and, most recently, the 2021 movie Yes Day. On TV, he had guest roles on The King of Queens, Judging Amy, and Crossing Jordan before The Good Wife. After that series, he played Liam Connors in three episodes of Secrets and Lies, the villainous Nick St. Clair on Riverdale, and Nate in the Netflix dramedy Atypical.
Phillips' roots are in theater, and he performed in a number of productions as a child actor. In 2009, he was part of the cast of the Broadway musical 13, which is how he met his girlfriend of the next few years, Ariana Grande. In 2019, he snagged the role of Prince Eric in the TV special, The Little Mermaid Live!, and in 2022, he played Nick in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Vega went into acting after her sister.
Michael Buckner/Getty ImagesVega's older sister is Alexa PenaVega, of Spy Kids fame. As their careers were blossoming in the 2000s, the siblings could be often be spotted on red carpets together.
Vega, just one year younger than Phillips in real life, booked her first sitcom role, in The Geena Davis Show, and her first movie role, in The Family Man, when she was only five years old. Other films she's done include Made, Saw, Sin City (she played the young version of Jessica Alba's character), X-Men: The Last Stand, and In the Land of Women. She's been more active on TV since playing Grace, appearing in episodes of the teen drama 13 Reasons Why and several TV movies.
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Phillips made his directorial debut.
While still playing Zach, Phillips went to college at Princeton and majored in history. As if he didn't have enough going on during this time, he co-founded his first production company, which mounted musicals and created short films.
He and his brother Parker now run Phillips Pictures. Their first production was a 2014 short film that they followed up in 2019 with the feature western film, The Bygone, written and directed by the siblings as a team. They've also co-directed Rumble Through the Dark, an upcoming drama starring Bella Thorne and Aaron Eckhart. IMDB has it listed as being in post-production, and no release date has been announced just yet.
"Rumble Through the Dark is set in the dark landscape of the Mississippi Delta where a bare knuckle cage fighter (Eckhart) seeks to repay his debts to a local mob boss in a final desperate attempt to salvage his family home," Variety reports. "Thorne plays a carnival hustler who stumbles upon a murder that ultimately leads to a dark family connection."
Vega is a mom.
In 2017, Vega quietly married Blair Norfolk, an Australian model and business owner. "Three weeks ago today we made the commitment to become a family of two," Norfolk wrote on Instagram when they finally shared the news, as reported by JustJared. "My wife is the first person I’ve ever met that not only helps me be the best version of myself but manages to make everyone around her feel valued and loved."
The couple welcomed a daughter named Marlo in 2020, and Vega shares lots of shots of their family life on social media. "These two were exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it," Vega wrote of Norfolk and their child on a Mother's Day post this year.
