LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY (TRANSCRIPT OF MARG’S INTERVIEW)
June 5, 2007
Interviewers: Kelly Ripa and Bryant Gumbel, who was filling in for Regis Philbin.
Kelly: She’s best known as Catherine Willows on CSI. Now, instead of catching serial killers, she is married to one in the new film Mr. Brooks. Here is Marg Helgenberger.
Bryant: Hello Marg!
Marg: Hello! How are you?
Bryant: It has been a long time.
Marg: I know.
Bryant: It’s nice to see you again.
Marg: And nice to see you too.
Bryant: You too.
Kelly: The body, the body. (hugs Marg) Hi!
Marg: You say the body… (points at Kelly’s body)
Kelly: How are you?
Marg: I’m good. Thank you.
Bryant: Okay, just between you and me, how did the last five minutes go? No, seriously, my copy stopped — stopped with about 7 or 8 minutes to go.
Marg: I’m sorry to hear that. There’s something that happens in the end that is quite startling…
Bryant: I would assume, yeah.
Marg: It keeps going, keeps turning, this movie.
Bryant: Would I be shocked, surprised, amazed, disappointed?
Marg: All of it. I don’t think you’d be disappointed.
Bryant: No?
Marg: No, but shocked, surprised, dismayed.
Bryant: Because to me Moore’s story is opened, your daughter’s story is opened, your husband’s story is opened…
Marg: Ohh, one of those, one of those.
Bryant: One of those is…
Marg: I’m not going to say which one.
Kelly: This is…this is their way of getting talk show hosts to go out and actually buy a ticket instead of just watching the screen. You understand?
Bryant: I understand.
Kelly: So how is your husband doing? Last time you were here he was run…he was running to be the president of SAG.
Marg: Yes.
Kelly: How did that go?
Marg: He is the president of SAG, yes, and actually he is…
Kelly: All right!
Marg: Yeah, he’s doing a great job too!
Bryant: So we know who to take our complaints to.
Kelly: That’s a… that’s a big job.
Bryant: If we’ve got a complaint, he’s who we turn to.
Marg: Yeah, he gets, he gets calls from you can’t imagine. I mean, from Clint Eastwood to you know, some whackjobs. Now we have had security because somebody is like threatening…
Bryant: Really?
Marg: Yeah, yeah!
Bryant: But can you take it seriously?
Kelly: Why, yeah.
Bryant: I mean, they’re like…
Marg: You know…It’s a hundred and twenty thousand actors. Don’t you think there are about sixty five percent of them who are nuts?
Marg: (laughs)
Kelly: Well, that’s, that’s an underestimate, but okay.
Marg: (laughs) Exactly.
Kelly: But so, now, Clint Eastwood calls, what does he say?
Marg: I think this had to do – it’s always something – “I want a…help me out here. I’ve got some issues…”. You know, it was the film that he did with, the Iwo Jima film, so I think it had to do with Japanese actors, or something like that. The same thing happened with somebody else that had to do with actors from overseas. And Alan is just like, you know “I’ll do whatever I can”, and he does, you know, within the boundaries of the, of what he’s capable of doing. But he says to me, and he all the time says “You know, I can see how politicians become corrupt”because people call all the time asking “Hey, can you do this for me, can you do that for me?”
Kelly: Right, right, no kidding.
Bryant: (mumbles)
Marg: What’s that?
Bryant: Now, it’s, you know, it’s hard to believe as you walked out here, because you turned to me and said “Look at the body”…
Kelly: The body, yeah…
Bryant: But, you just went to a prom, your teenager’s prom?
Marg: Well I didn’t. But I was, I… my son, yes, attended his first junior-senior prom, he’s growing up!
Bryant: That’s impossible!
Marg: And ahm…
Bryant: Did you, did you like his date?
Marg: Oh well, I know his date. Yeah she, she’s very sweet. But they don’t, like, she didn’t, he didn’t go pick her up, they go in a big group. I did say “You know, let’s get her a corsage, come on!” So we got her this beautiful orchid wrist corsage and…
Kelly: How beautiful.
Bryant: That’s always better. Go with the wrist so the guy doesn’t have to do the…
Marg: Right!
Bryant: You know, that’s always a little, always a little…
Marg: Yeah, I know (laughs). But, you know, they go in this big Hummer limo, with like 20 or 25 kids or something like that.
Kelly: So it’s like a group date.
Marg: It’s a group date, yeah. And then they go on to the party at the high school where they had Dilated Peoples, this rap group perform. (to the audience) Anybody know Dilated Peoples?
Bryant: Dilated Peoples?
Marg: And I meant to go like on iTunes and hear them.
Bryant: Dilated Peoples…
Marg: I’m sure I would’ve disapproved of the language, but…
Bryant: I’m sure.
Kelly: Didn’t they used, they used to call a group date something different in your generation, didn’t they, Bryant? A group date…
Marg: (laughs)
Bryant: We didn’t have cars in my generation.
Kelly: (laughs)
Bryant: But we used to all get in the back of the buggy, and we’d just put a couple of horses to pull it, that’s alright.
Kelly: But so, did you, were you there with the camera? Did you take pictures?
Marg: Yes, and he were my husband’s Armani tux and his Fodor? cufflinks, he looked really stylin’. Awesome. But he had a change of clothes, he had those, you know, Rocawear oversized jeans and the oversized dodger, the whole, you know, gangsta rap thing…
Bryant: For the post coming party.
Kelly: Right.
Marg: For the after party, which was somewhere on La Cienega…
Kelly: Right, they’re not going tell you where.
Marg: You know, they never, they’re so devious…
Bryant: And the after party is even bigger than the prom, yes?
Marg: Supposedly. And then, here is another thing, I don’t know if this happens on the East Coast… big sleep over parties with all the kids.
Kelly: Oh yeah! Everybody would get like a hotel room and seven hundred people would stay at one hotel room.
Marg: Well, this was at one of the girl’s parent’s home, which in, they have quite a bit of money so it was, you know, a big compound, whatever, and I said “so, the parents are going to be there?” – “yeah, of course, mom, there’s tons of security”, I said “okay, okay”, but here it is..He comes home – he crawls in about 12:30 the next day, right. He’s still, he’s got his Rocawear gear on…
Kelly: So when you say crawl, literally on his hands and knees?
Marg: Well, I mean, he was shuffling.
Kelly: Right, aha.
Marg: Thank god he wasn’t crawling, because that would have been cause for concern. Anyway, and he had – I noticed he had this bandana wrapped around his neck, and I said “Wow, this is a new little feature,” and of course it was to disguise the fact that he had about six hickeys.
(Everyone gasps)
Marg: Yeah, uh huh..
Kelly: See how we are. Now we’re like ‘That, that, that little’ what’s his name?
Marg: Hughie.
Kelly: ‘That little Hughie!’ But if that was a girl, we’d be like ‘Oh well, that’s not okay.’
Bryant: Right.
Marg: That’s exactly right, I know!
Bryant: We’re talking with Marg Helgenberger, who plays the wife of serial killer Kevin Costner in “Mr. Brooks.” Let’s take a look at a clip. In this one, your husband lies to you, odd that he would do that, to go on a killing spring.
Kelly: That’s weird. Your husband lies to you to go on his killing spring.
Bryant: Oh, you want to. Yeah, no, we’re not. Oh, the tape’s not ready.
Kelly: Oh, the tape’s not ready, okay, but anyway. I was very surprised at how, how conflicted Kevin Costner serial killer was, I mean, it’s like he really is…
Marg: Tortured.
Kelly: He is a tortured soul.
Bryant: Well, in fact, he has his alter ego with him all the time.
Marg: That’s right, played by William Hurt.
Bryant: William Hurt.
Marg: That’s a device of the film that’s, you know, like the ghost character you see in some films.
Kelly: I liked the way they did that as a matter of fact.
Marg: I was, it was, fun being in those scenes with those guys, I mean, first of all, they’re just great, brilliant actors and sexy and all that stuff, you know, and it was, but it was hard to ignore William Hurt, I mean, wanted to respond, but of course, I didn’t have that opportunity.
Kelly: Right, right. You’re not seeing his imaginary friend.
Marg: I just, no.
Bryant: Okay, let’s…this is not the imaginary clip.
Kelly: No, this is the real clip.
Marg: (laughs)
Bryant: Let’s, let’s roll.
(clip from Mr. Brooks is shown)
Marg: Thank you!
Kelly: Anytime, your husband, anytime you’re not on a first name basis with your husband, it’s a problem. I think maybe that’s this, that’s it.
Marg: Oh (laughs)
Bryant: I’m not, I’m not giving anything away by saying that you’re the only one in that family who’s pretty normal.
Marg: That’s probably, yeah, you could, that’s safe to say, yes.
Kelly: Wow, it’s a great movie!
Marg: I’m the lightness to his darkness.
Bryant: Right, yeah.
Kelly: Great movie!
Marg: Thank you.
Kelly: Mr. Brooks in theaters now. Marg, thank you for being here.
Bryant: Thank you, Marg. It was good to see you.
Marg: It was good to see you too.
Bryant: Thank you.
*Special thanks to Andry for transcribing this interview.