CRIME QUEEN: MARG HELGENBERGER ON THE ‘CSI’ SHE COULDN’T TAKE
May 9, 2010
By MAXINE SHEN
After a decade of dealing with gruesome murders, grisly accidents, creepy fetishes and the occasional wooden stake to the cranium, there’s only one crime scene that still creeps out “CSI” star Marg Helgenberger.
Longtime fans will recall the scene — a transgender person who is found frozen in death, mid-operation and surrounded by gore and medical waste. The stomach-churning moment took place during the series’ 100th episode, titled “Ch-Ch-Changes,” airing all the way back during the show’s fifth season in 2004.
Helgenberger, 51, who plays recently promoted night-shift supervisor Catherine Willows, says both cast and crew had a hard time completing the shoot, which was filmed inside a storage unit.
William Petersen’s exit meant more air time for Helgenberger.
CBS
William Petersen’s exit meant more air time for Helgenberger.
“We couldn’t even stay in the storage unit in between takes,” she says. “It was just creepy. All of us had to go outside and get some fresh air. The corpse was fake, but the image of it and thinking about how horrifying it was. . .that was one of the hardest ones we’ve had to get through.”
It didn’t help that “prosthetic makeup artists kept coming in and adding more blood and gore” either, Helgenberger says, noting that what the actors dealt with was much more gruesome than what we ended up seeing at home. If the scene had looked like the real deal, “there was no way it would’ve made it on air,” she says.
Although not quite as gory, the activities of this season’s big serial killer, nicknamed “Dr. Jekyll,” deserve to be high on the list of really gross “CSI” moments, thanks to the stunts he’s been pulling off all year long. (Earlier this season, he used laparoscopic surgery to tie a man’s intestines into a bow and sewed a rotting appendix to another man’s healthy appendix.)
“This guy is all about the minutiae of internal organs.” Helgenberger says. “It’s just really disturbing stuff. I applaud the writers for how they can come up with this stuff. It’s really ingenious.”
So much so, that Helgenberger believes the season finale, in which the CSI team finally unmasks the killer “is actually one of the better season finales we’ve ever done. It’s filled with a lot of suspense, action and dark humor, and it does leave you with something that resonates until next season.”
Now wrapping up its 10th season, the trail-blazing procedural drama spent all year trying to recover from the tizzy caused by the departure of CSI boss Gil Grissom (William Petersen) midway through season nine.
Fans couldn’t quite imagine a “CSI” without Grissom and didn’t immediately warm to his replacement, Dr. Raymond Langston (Laurence Fishburne). The result? A distinct drop in viewership.
This lead to a team effort to revitalize the series and alleviate the loss of Grissom.
Writers jettisoned the idea of Langston as a lab newbie and played up his pathology background, while execs brought back original cast member Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) for several guest-starring appearances. For their part, the series regulars offered up ideas for what they’d like to see happen with their characters.
“I think that all contributed to making this season vastly superior,” Helgenberger says. “It’s hard when a character as indelible as Gil Grissom leaves the show. . .but I think this season, you didn’t really feel the weight of Gil Grissom [anymore].”
William Petersen’s exit meant more air time for Helgenberger.
CBS
William Petersen’s exit meant more air time for Helgenberger.
For Helgenberger, one advantage of the Grissom-free season was the show’s commitment to delve into Catherine’s personal life.
“Practically every season I’ve said to [the writers] that I always like to have stuff with my daughter Lindsey [Kay Panabaker] because it shows a side of Catherine that you don’t always get to see. [As a mom] she’s very strong, together and confident,” Helgenberger says.
Writers accommodated that request with the recent episode in which Catherine investigates a murder at her teenager daughter’s high school.
Another frequent request, Helgenberger says, is “Can I have a love interest?”
Not, she notes, because she wants a drawn-out affair.
“I’m of the same mind as the producers,” she says. “I don’t want to veer too much into the territory of a soap opera, because it takes away from what the show’s formula is. But, having said that, [a romantic plotline] shows another side of Catherine — her sexuality, her vulnerability, her passion and her sense of humor.”
Ask and you shall receive: The writers whipped up a little romance between Catherine and homicide detective Vartann (Alex Carter), which started after they spent 24 hours staking out a pair of drug dealers at a hotel.
“He’s a really easy guy to work with and easy on the eyes,” Helgenberger says. “I think they definitely will try to keep [the relationship] going, pepper it throughout next season.”
Considering Catherine’s bad luck with men — two guys she had sparks with were murdered and she caught another boyfriend cheating on her with a young floozy — you shouldn’t expect to see her at the altar any time soon. Unless she’s swabbing one for DNA.
“Catherine’s kind of like a black widow,” Helgenberger jokes. Still, she predicts that nothing bad will happen to Vartann as a result of having hooked up with Catherine.
Although ratings are still lower than in previous years — “CSI” is currently averaging 15.8 million viewers a week, down from highs of more than 20 million viewers three seasons ago — the series remains in the Top 10, an impressive feat for a show that’s 10 years old.
“That’s a decade of solving crimes,” says the actress who is divorced from actor Alan Rosenberg and has a 19-year old son, Hugh. “I never would have expected that when we started. I knew it was a hit when I first saw it, I knew it, reading it and when I saw the pilot, it had a magic to it.
“But wow, what kind of an impact it’s had — on juries, on young people wanting to become criminalists, on science classes and middle schools teaching criminal investigation. It’s become so much more than pop culture; it become history-making and that’s kind of cool.”