Dallas Roberts to Go Gay for

Dallas Roberts, who starred in The L Word, will take a gay role in the CBS drama The Good Wife, making him the highest profile gay character added to date since the network received its second consecutive failing grade on the GLAAD Network Responsibility Index.

According to Entertainment Weekly, sources confirmed that The Good Wife cast Roberts to play the never-before-seen gay brother of Alicia, played by Julianna Margulies. The role may potentially be recurring.

Executive producer Robert King sees the brother character, a University of Oregon mathematics teacher, as a means to access the "back story" of Alicia, reports EW. Sexual orientation is not expected to be a main theme.

"We just thought [it would be interesting] if it didn't matter," said King, according to EW. "Everybody around them thinks it's an issue between them, but there's no issue. We kind of like that it voids expectations of what will happen between them."

Roberts played gay character Jonathan Glover in the film A Home at the End of the World, alongside Colin Farrell.

The addition of Roberts marks one of three gay characters added by CBS since its most recent poor showing on the GLAAD Network Responsibility Index, which gave the network a failing grade for LGBT inclusion.