M-A-R-G
Movieline
July 1995
By Heidi Parker
“I’d say I’ve paid my dues big time!” says Marg Helgenberger, whose career until now has involved nearly 10 years of slogging through dreck films that have either ‘death’ or ‘vengeance’ in the title, with the occasional appearance in quality TV fare like China Beach. In fact, there have been bits and pieces of Helgenberger nearly everywhere – you may recall her recent lean-down-to-get-your-diet-Coke-and-you-missed-it turn in Bad Boys, in which she plays one of the bitchiest sex kittens to don a badge ever. “Oh, that film was a mess. They didn’t know what they were doing,” she insists. “I said yes without reading the script – I now know I shouldn’t have done that. Then they dressed me in spiked heels and a push-up bra – I mean, a fed in a push-up bra? It was a joke!”
At long last, though, she’s got a meaty role in a potential hit, one of this summer’s sci-fi extravaganzas, Species. In it she plays a molecular biologist who messes around with genes from outer space. “I’m the Heidi Fleiss of gene-splicing,” she says, “because my only job is to play with alien DNA all day long.” If the film takes off and gives her the profile she needs, perhaps people will stop mistaking her for dead ringer Suzy Amis. “Once I was outside Roxbury and this photographer kept yelling ‘Suzy, Suzy.’ I ignored him. Then he said, ‘Hey, Suzy, c’mon, let me take your picture. Don’t give me a hard time.’ Don’t give him a hard time?” she says. Uh-oh, did she pull a Sean Penn? “No, I turned around and said, ‘Hey, I’m not Suzy, I’m Marg. M-A-R-G!’ But he didn’t believe me.”