Julianna Margulies' The Good Wife wig costs $10,000 a season

The creators of hit TV drama The Good Wife are so keen to hide leading lady Julianna Margulies' real hair on the show they spend $10,000 each season for a new wig.

The star has been portraying litigator Alicia Florrick since the show's launch in 2009 and she reveals her duties as a new mom at the time were what initially prompted producers to bring in the pricey hair prop.

She tells talk show host David Letterman, "My own hair is more curly, and they wanted her (character) to look very coiffed and have straight hair. I thought, 'Oh my, God! Twenty-two episodes a year, 14 episodes a day' - and then if the weather changes, my hair starts growing like a Chia Pet, depending on the humidity.

"I'd just had my baby (at the time) and my baby was 13 months old when we started the show, and I wanted that extra hour it would take to blow-dry my hair straight to have with my child.

"It takes 10 minutes to put that wig on and there's no continuity problems!"

Margulies claims the cost of the wigs, which are made with real human hair, have actually become a good investment for show bosses at CBS.

She explains, "What's great about it (the wig) is you always look the same. And then, because we do a lot of flashbacks, now I have all the wigs - we get a new wig every season, because they need to be changed or whatever. You have to freshen it up, and she (Florrick) has different haircuts sometimes, too. So, they'll keep the old wigs so we can do flashbacks, and it has saved them more money (not having to restyle her hair)."