MARG ON LIVE WITH KELLY & MICHAEL (TRANSCRIPT)
July 2, 2015
Kelly: Now here comes an Emmy winning actress whose hit shows include China Beach, CSI, and now Under the Dome. Please welcome the gorgeous Marg Helgenberger!
Marg: Thank you.
Kelly: It’s so great to see you.
Marg: You too. I always love seeing you, being back and having fun, and Michael, I’m a huge football fan.
Michael: I heard you were a huge football fan.
Marg: Yes. Carolina Panthers.
Kelly: Wait, you two have never met.
Marg: No. Uh, uh.
Mchael: We have never met and you like the Carolina Panthers.
Marg: That’s my team, yeah.
Michael: Really? I actually like the Panthers so I can’t be upset with you.
Marg: Oh good. I mean, I like the Giants too.
Michael: Thank you.
Marg: Yes, absolutely.
Michael: We’ll be 1B. They can be 1A, we’ll be 1B. We’ll be a 1B team.
Marg: All right.
Kelly: I don’t know what that means, but yes.
Kelly: The Fourth of July weekend is coming up. Do you do anything special to celebrate? Do you have big plans?
Marg: I usually have a pretty good sized barbecue, invite a few friends over. Because I’m across the street from a country club, so they have a huge fireworks display.
Kelly: That’s great.
Marg: Yes. So we kind of, like, bootleg the fireworks. But you know, this way you can have as many margaritas as you want.
Kelly: Yeah, they don’t own the sky.
Marg: They don’t.
Kelly: They can’t stop you from looking up.
Mag: But you don’t have to get in your car to go view them, so you can pound back the margaritas.
Michael: And we know your son Hugh is kind of all over the place. Is he going to be with you?
Marg: Unfortunately, well no, he’s actually in Japan right now because he’s teaching English there for a year.
Kelly: No kidding.
Marg: Yeah.
Kelly: So his Japanese must be amazing?
Marg: Well, he took four years in high school. So I mean he’s, you know, he needs to brush up on it. He’s been doing the Rosetta Stone thing. I mean he’ll be a lot better.
Kelly: Living there, he’ll certainly pick it up.
Marg: Definitely. It’s a place that he’s always fantasized about as a young boy. So there he is, living his dream.
Kelly: Good for him.
Marg: Yeah.
Kelly: How old is he now?
Marg: He’s 24.
Kelly: That’s crazy. That’s nuts.
(A picture of Marg and Hugh is shown)
Michael: Well good, yeah. That’s really amazing. There he is right there.
Marg: That was his going away party like 3 or 4 weeks ago. 4 weeks ago.
(Audience awwwwws)
Kelly: Did the country club have fireworks? That would have been amazing.
Marg: Oh, I would have loved to be able to stage that for his benefit. But no.
Michael: And now your name is Marg?
Marg: Yes.
Michael: Do people get it wrong a lot? Do they call you Marge? Do they spell it wrong?
Marg: Constantly. I mean, actually, Marg’s my middle name. It’s…Mary Marg is my full name. It just never really lasted very long to be Mary Marg. But it gets mispronounced so often that I even have considered, as of late even, to changing it to Margo. Because it’s spelt M-A-R-G-O, because nobody would mispronounce that. But you know. Too many people said ‘No don’t do it.’
Kelly: Right, right. I’m thinking Mary Marg Helgenberger. I’m thinking, picturing you filling out your SAT forms. Like you must have spent 35 minutes on your name alone. Just filling out your…
Marg: Yeah. When I was a child, it was Margy. All through college, it was Margy Helgenberger.
Michael: They were just being lazy. People get lazy they just say anything. Like when someone calls me Mikey.
Kelly: Mikey no likey?
Michael: Mikey no likey.
Kelly: All right, I’ll stop calling you Mikey.
Marg: Do you ever go by Mike?
Michael: Mike…my mom calls me Mike, but that’s about the only person. I don’t mind being called Mike, but most people…I think I look like a Michael.
Marg and Kelly: You do look like a Michael.
Kelly (high fives Marg) Jinx, jinx.
Kelly: Now, you must get recognized around the world no matter where you go. I mean between all of the hit TV series, movies.
Marg: Well, CSI pretty much is a global phenomenon and I recently was in Cuba, in November. And I, you know, I just assumed they didn’t get American programming.
Kelly: Right.
Marg: One would think that, right? But as soon as I like stepped through immigration, you know, I got recognized. And it happened throughout the whole country. And it was explained to me, I said “How does this happen?” And they said, “Well, you never know in Cuba.” Something gets put on a memory stick and gets passed around and passed around and eventually it ends up on public TV.
Kelly: No kidding.
Marg: Because they’re very inventive people, out of necessity. It was a wonderful trip. I tell everyone to go, because the people are just amazing. And so sweet and ingenious.
Kelly: And the music and the architecture.
Marg: The music, yes.
Michael: And now after 15 seasons, CSI is going to come to an end, but are you going to be on the finale?
Marg: I am going to be on the 2 hour series finale.
Michael: Awesome, Awesome.
(audience cheers)
Marg: Thank you. Yeah and William Petersen who played Grissom all those years is coming back. And Zuiker who created the series is writing the script. The guy who directed the pilot, Danny Cannon. So it’s a whole…real homecoming.
Kelly: It’s a whole reunion.
Marg: Yes.
Kelly: That’s great.
Michael: But it was my favorite show. I would sit there and watch it and be like I cannot get away with any crime. And the way, it was, nothing like it…
Kelly: But you learn how to commit the perfect murder. It was educational.
Michael: No, but then you learn, and Marg….If I was in Cuba and saw Marg coming though, I’m like she’s here to solve a crime. Like I would have freaked out. You can’t get away with anything after you’ve watched this show. Because the way in the show that things happen and how things go into the body and how they affect your system…it is the most amazing, like, revolution to me as far as TV.
Marg: Oh, thank you.
Michael: I love the show. I’m so happy you’re going to be on the finale. And then when we come back, we’re going talk about your connection to Stephen King.
Marg: Okay, sounds good.
Michael: We’ll be right back with Marg Helgenberger everyone, so stay right here.
(Commercial break)
(Scene from Under the Dome shown)
Michael: And that’s from the show Under the Dome. And you play Christine Price, a new resident in Chester’s Mill.
Marg: A new resident, yes.
Michael: You’re kind of, you’re very mysterious. So what’s your story?
Marg: Well, I’m a therapist that is there to counsel people who’ve either lost a loved one or their home or you know…And things are kind of desperate under the dome because they’re running out of all the basic needs, food and medical supplies, etc. And, but you know sometimes I come at people with a little bit of force and my agenda becomes the only agenda because I want this team to work as a collective, this community to work as a collective. And if you don’t hop on board sometimes (Marg chuckles), it doesn’t work out.
Kelly: So you signed up for season 3? Right?
Marg: Well, I’m actually just doing I guess what’s called an arc. So I’m doing 10 out of the 13 episodes this season.
Kelly: Oh.
Marg: Yes.
Michael: So how did you end up on the show?
Marg: Well, Neal Baer who runs the show I’ve known since China Beach days and he’s a lovely guy and really talented, called me and said that they were thinking of…they were creating a role with me in mind. In fact, they call the role Margo, originally before they changed it to Christine. And it just sounded really intriguing with him saying things like alternate realities and matrixes and cocoons and it was a lot to process in one phone conversation. But then after I thought about it, I thought ‘Well, this is kind of intriguing.’ And it has been a real fun evolution to see where he’s taking this character.
Kelly: Do you think the Dome answer, like the dome mystery will be solved eventually?
Marg: Some of the questions will be answered. Yes. How the dome came down in the first place.
Kelly: Do you want to hear my theory?
Marg: Please.
Kelly: I have a crazy theory. I think that you’re all very tiny people and and somebody is just going take the cake top off the thing and be like, ‘You are free.’
Marg: Remember those…a Twilight Zone episode.
Kelly: Yeah.
Marg: Do you remember this one where these people were driving around in this community and they kept driving around in the same…
Kelly: Yes.
Marg: And they were like on a doll’s set.
Kelly: Yes!
Marg: And this big hand comes in and picks up the train and Aaaahhh.
Kelly: But doesn’t that make sense? You’re just stuck in the cake thing…
Marg: It’s brilliant.
Kelly: That’s how I think it should be solved. In case they’re looking for a write in.
Marg: I’m going to call Neal right after I finish this interview.
Michael: I’m kind of upset at you, you just spoiled the whole show.
Kelly: They’re like ‘How does she know that?’
Michael: Well Marg, we love having you. Thank you so much. Big, big fan. Under the Dome, it airs Thursdays at 10 PM on CBS. Make sure you check it out. The talented Marg Helgenberger, everybody!