MARG HELGENBERGER, RED CARPET INTERVIEW IN THE ATAS’S “PRIMETIME TV CRIMEFIGHTERS” EVENT
Aired November 1, 2010
Sorry, but I did not catch the name of the woman doing the interview.
Interviewer: How excited are you to be here amongst all of your peers?
Marg: Well I’m kind of excited to be…I’m in really good company. I’m a big fan of a lot of these actors. And some of whom I’ve met and some of whom I haven’t, so I’m looking forward to being on the…hearing what they have to say about their gig.
Interviewer: Tell us more about your gig and what you’ve done. Go ahead and tell us just a little bit about your show and what we can expect coming up.
Marg: Well, let’s see, eleven seasons of CSI…I think you see a little bit more of Catherine’s personal life. She’s got a…I’ve got a love interest on the show, played by Alex Carter, Detective Vartann. That has been a lot of fun because he’s just a cool guy. But it has just been fun playing something different – than always having to be a strong, cerebral, assertive woman, which is what I’m having to do a lot of the time on the show. Now you get to see a little more vulnerability and more of an intimate side, and I’m enjoying it.
Interviewer: As an actress, what you describe for me, it seems like the female detectives are either playing really cold, hard, logical…So do you think because women have come so far in acting that we’re able to be, like, diverse in our characters when you see us onscreen. Because it seems like it’s kind of mirroring the way that you see women in business. Used to see everybody like mirroring the men and in the business suits. And now you actually look more feminine in the work place.
Marg: Yeah, that was something that I really tried hard to do when I first started this show back in the day. I didn’t want her to lose her femininity. And I felt there was…I thought you could be just as strong without losing any of that softness. And coming from the career path that this character has taken, starting off as an exotic dancer leading into a criminalist…
Interviewer: Not the typical job trajectory from one to the other.
Marg: No, no…So I thought there’s got to be a way that one of her skills that she learned, like talking with the guys when she wasn’t on stage…those are kinds of skills she could use in interviewing a criminalist, I mean interviewing a suspect. And so I tried to…and the way the costuming and everything, I was able to soften the character up, while still being very strong.
Interviewer: Thank you so much for spending time with us. We’ll see you inside. Have a great time.
Marg: Thank you very much.