LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY, TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW
September 28, 2006
Regis: You’ve all seen our next guest She plays the crime scene analyst Catherine Willows on CBS’s big hit drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Please welcome, Marg Helgenberger!
Regis: Looking hot! How are you?
Marg: Great! (To Kelly) Hey!
Kelly: How are you? You’re wearing that…
Regis: Look at you. Looking so trim. Whoa!
Kelly: Also wearing tight jeans! Thank you very much!
Marg: Skinny jeans.
Regis: Skinny jeans are in, no doubt about it.
Kelly: He was just harassing me about my skinny jeans.
Marg: I heard him.
Kelly: But he showered you with compliments when you walked out here.
(Marg and Regis laugh).
Marg: (starts fidgeting behind her): I’m losing my little mike in my skinny jeans! These low rider skinny jeans…
Regis: There’s no room for the microphone!
Regis: Marg, it’s back for the seventh season, huh?
Marg: Back for the seventh season. It goes by quickly.
Regis: Wow, what a hit. Number one!
Marg: What year is it for you all? My God, how many for…
Regis: Well, I’ve been doing it here for 23 years.
Marg: Bravo.
Regis: Yeah.
Marg: And Kelly, how long have you been with the show?
Regis: Five
Kelly: I’ve only been here for five.
Marg: Oh!
Kelly: But it seems like much more (Marg and Kelly laugh)
Regis: Come to think of it, it seems more like 35 for me.
Regis: I haven’t seen you since our…my escapade there. I visited you on the set.
Marg: I remember it well, and you know, we loved having you there.
Regis: Did you?
Marg: You gotta come back, and you too, Kelly! We had so much fun.
Kelly: Yes, he loved it. He played a dead body at one point, didn’t you? Didn’t they perform an autopsy on him?
Regis: We had a little visit clip, yes.
Marg: Yes, the autopsy. And then you were playing director for a little while.
Regis: I did direct that segment pretty well, I thought.
Marg: Yes, you did. You were brilliant. That was some of the best direction I’ve ever been given.
Regis: Honest to God. That’s…
Marg: Uh huh.
Regis: You mean that, don’t you?
Marg: Yes, I do! (laughs)
Kelly: What…what direction did you give her?
Regis: I don’t remember (Marg laughs)…I just remember it was great.
Marg: ‘Faster, funnier.’
Regis: So, what did you do this summer while you were on hiatus?
Marg: I went back to my little hometown of North Bend, Nebraska, where I was honored by having a street named after me, Helgenberger Avenue. It was on the street corner I grew up on, and…
Regis: Oh, that’s great.
Marg: That was really a lot of fun.
Regis: Did you say North Bend?
Marg: Yes.
Regis: Sounds like a small town, huh?
Marg: 1,200
Regis: 1,200?
Marg: Yeah, 1,200. Very rural area, and it was very touching. They did a program at the high school…
Regis: That’s nice.
Marg: In which my English teacher, who’s still there, had her students perform scenes from shows that I had done – you know, ‘Once Upon a Mattress.’
Regis: Uh huh.
Marg: It was really touching.
Regis: Did you go to your old house on the street where you lived?
Marg: Yes, yes, and got a tour of that, and you know, as most people when they return home, everything seems so much smaller and…
Regis: Yeah.
Marg: It was a home that…an old home, built in 1910, it was built, and we had…it was always filled with teenagers when…especially during Homecoming and Prom because it was a…
Kelly: Sure. I’ll bet.
Marg: Like I said, a rural community so all of the farm kids would come and that’s where the girls would change out of their pep club outfits and into their, you know, little formals for the prom.
Regis: Sounds like you were the golden girl of the whole neighborhood (laughs)
Marg: Well I…but I never made any sort of Prom Queen or Homecoming Queen.
Regis: No kidding!
Marg: No! I didn’t!
Kelly: Well, I bet they’re sorry now! (Everyone laughs)
Marg: But it was a great place to grow up.
Regis: I’ll bet.
Marg: Yes, it was.
Regis: And then you went on to Northwestern University, and then…
Marg: I went to Northwestern University, and I returned in May. I was asked by the Dean to be on the Advisory Council, and I was very flattered about that. You know, at Northwester, which is a great academic school, and it does have a better football program now…
Regis: Yes, they do. Yeah.
Marg: But at the time, we set the record…
Regis: They sucked.
Marg: For the most consecutive college, most consecutive losses in college football history. And one year I remember there was this campaign, PR campaign, to get behind the team and they made up bumper stickers that said ‘Expect the Unexpected,’ right? And then, after the first couple of annihilations, you know (Regis and Kelly laugh)…every time we would see one, we would cross out the ‘un’ so it would say ‘Expect the Expected’. (Everyone laughs)
Regis: Oh, but they came back. They’ve got a good team now. We’ll be right back with Marg.
(commercial break)
Regis: Marg Helgenberger. Seventh year on CSI. It premiered last week, and of course, how’s your character doing these days?
Marg: Well, this episode this evening is a continuation from what happened towards the end of last week. Um, you know, it’s quite a journey, because she was roofied – in a cocktail – she was given a date rape drug.
Regis: Roofied?
Marg: It’s a…
Kelly: Rufinol? Right? Rufinol.
Marg: Yes.
Regis (to Kelly): How would you know so much about that?
Kelly: I don’t know (acts like a junkie). No, I’ve read…it’s in the newspaper. You read about it all the time.
Regis: Rufinol.
Marg: Yeah, it’s a date rape…
Regis: Somebody slipped you one of those…
Marg: Right, and I wake up, you know…
Regis: You don’t know where you are, how you got there.
Marg: Yes, how I got there, which I know a lot of people have to encounter that. It’s sad, but…
Regis: So you’ve got to investigate your own case here, more or less?
Marg: I have to process myself actually, which was really some of the more, I have to saw, raw stuff I’ve had to do because it’s a very sensitive subject. But anyway, that’s just the beginning of this journey that puts Catherine in – that take her, that brings her daughter into the scene, her father into the scene.
Regis: Wow.
Marg: And it’s quite – it was actually a really, from an acting point of view, it was really gratifying…
Regis: Yeah.
Marg: Because most of the time we’re tape lifting dandruff or, you know, stuff like that.
Kelly: But I bet, but it was exhausting.
Marg: In some way, but in other ways, it was totally energizing.
Kelly: Wow.
Marg: Because it was…
Regis: So, excuse me, but don’t you know whether or not you were raped?
Marg: I find out, yes. Well, I’m not going to tell you!
Regis: Oh, okay, we’ve got to watch and find out. Yeah, but of course, you’d have to be checked, right?
Marg: Yeah.
Regis: Sure. So, but in this particular scene, you’re apologizing to your daughter because you missed her dance rehearsal, right?
Marg: Yes. That’s right, yes, and uhhh, I guess the clip can speak for itself.
Regis: Let’s take a look at this.
(Clip from CSI is shown)
Regis: Wow! That’s some kind of scene!
Marg: Yeah, that’s….
Kelly: Marg! What in the world is going on in your life?!
Marg: I know.
Regis: You’ve got a lot on your plate, Marg!
Marg: I know. It’s very dramatic, isn’t it? It was…It’s the first time I’ve seen that actually. In shooting, it was, you know, we’re always shooting in the middle of the night, so everything always seems surreal to begin with at that hour. But, it was, I know, at time, you know, a little bit tough, and uhh, you know, with having…thinking about if that was your real life, but it was…
Regis: Sure.
Marg: Like I said, it was pretty…I enjoyed it.
Kelly: Wow.
Regis: Wow, good piece of film making, and that’s going to be in the episode we’re going to see tonight.
Kelly: Tonight.
Marg: Yes, that’s right. Yes.
Regis: At 9:00 on CBS. CSI.
Kelly: Wow, don’t want to miss that.
Regis: Looks like a good one. Marg, so good to see you.
Marg: You too.
Regis: Please say hello to everybody, will you?
Marg: I will! I will, absolutely!
Kelly: Good seeing you, Marg.
Marg: You too! Thanks for having me.