K-EARTH 101 INTERVIEW: MARG TALKS ‘INTELLIGENCE’ & WORKING IN A MEAT-PACKING PLANT (TRANSCRIPT)
February 3, 2014
Marg did a phone interview with Gary Bryan and Lisa Stanley from K-Earth 101.
Gary: Now we’re very thrilled to have a super, actually a television superstar on the phone with us here. Marg Helgenberger from CSI and now Intelligence, tonight at 10PM on CBS. Marg, how ya doing?
Marg: I’m doing okay. How are you doing?
Gary: Marg, congratulations. A great new show. I mean you’re obviously…
Marg: Thank you.
Gary: Obviously, it’s great for CBS to have a big star like you on this new show Intelligence, also with Josh Holloway.
Marg: Josh, yes. Josh is a lot of fun. Just had a baby.
Lisa: Oh! They did have the baby.
Marg: Yeah, they had a boy.
Lisa: He’s not too bad to look at, is he Marg?
Marg: He’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure.
Lisa: Let me ask you something about your character because I L-L-L-L-love this show. But I don’t trust you to be who you say you are on this show.
Marg: Yeah, I mean the character is rather enigmatic and mysterious and inscrutable. All those things. But that’s what makes her kind of fun and appealing in turn for me because I don’t know what’s around the bend. In fact, tonight’s episode my father…he comes for a few episodes. He’s played by Peter Coyote, who’s a wonderful actor.
Gary: Yeah.
Marg: He’s all those things too. And he taught me everything I know.
Lisa: When you left CSI Marg, did you think to yourself maybe you wanted to enter into the next role, a comedy maybe. Or you always wanted to stay in this kind of character?
Marg: No, I was definitely open to anything, you know, really. I think sometimes you play a role for so long people have a hard time seeing you in another genre.
Gary: Yeah, especially when it’s that big of a hit, you know.
Marg: Yeah, so it’s not like comedies are just,like, thrown at me because it’s not what I came from. I wish they were, certainly sitcoms anyway. It’s just an easier schedule, that’s for sure.
Gary: So tonight on Intelligence, there’s a daughter of a US Senator is kidnapped, taken to Mexico by the Mexican cartel. You guys are obviously gonna rescue her tonight.
Marg: Correct.
Gary: Let me clear up a couple of legends about Marg Helgenberger while we’ve got you on the phone here. Were you a nightly weather person in Kearney Nebraska?
Marg: I was a weekend weather person.
Lisa: Really?! OMG! That is so great. I’m a frustrated meteorologist.
Marg: That was sort of a fluke. I did that for one summer. I was in school, I was in class, like, this Interpretation of Drama… And this guy that was the regular weather guy was in the class. And he said, “You know they’re looking for this weekend person. Come out and audition.” And I didn’t give a particularly good audition. But I guess they…they liked the fact that I winked into the lens. (Lisa laughs.)
Gary: There you go.
Marg: Well, it could have been worse, I guess. I could have had a lot of cleavage showing, but I didn’t do that.
Gary: I got another one for you and this is how she got the part on CSI I bet. Were you a de-boner at your father’s meat packing plant?
Marg: I was a boner…
Lisa: What?!
Marg: At, so yeah it was a meat packing plant that my father was…he was the government meat inspector for.
Gary: Wow!
Lisa: What does that consist of?!
Marg: Well, it was many jobs. It wasn’t just being a boner, which is, you know, trimming the…well, basically you’re given a set of knives and it’s an assembly line and certain cuts of meat would come down the line and you’d have to, like, you know, shape it. Like the one cut was this tenderloin and I had to trim the fat off the tenderloin, which you know that’s an expensive piece of beef.
Gary: You know what, Marg? I really like you a lot, I like you even more now. (Marg, Lisa, and Gary laugh.) You’re just that girl.
Marg: I’m a huge football fan too.
Lisa: Oh, good. Who were you rooting for last night?
Marg: Oh, unfortunately, I was rooting for Denver.
Gary and Lisa: Awwwww.
Lisa: Sorry.
Gary: So, we’ll be watching tonight at 10:00, Intelligence. Josh Holloway, we’ve already spoken to him. And it’s such a thrill to have you on the phone. You’re a legend.
Marg: Thank you.
Gary: And deservedly so. We really appreciate it. Marg Helgenberger from Intelligence, tonight at 10PM on CBS. Thank you, Marg.
Marg: Thank you.