The View, transcript of Marg’s interview

THE VIEW, TRANSCRIPT OF MARG’S INTERVIEW

February 23, 2006

Star: Everyone thinks they can get away with murder, but on CSI Marg Helgenberger makes sure that the killers pay the price. Please welcome back Marg Helgenberger!

Marg greets all the hosts.

Marg: Thanks for having me. What a great turn-out you’ve got!
Star: Yeah, isn’t this great in Vegas?

Star: We know that for years people talked to you about changing your name, Marg Helgenberger, and coming up with some showgirl TV kind of name. So you saw what we did on the show this morning. We got to pick a new name, a new profession and where we’re from. All right, you can pick right here and now. What’s your new name? Your Vegas name.
Marg: You know, I’ve heard this done where you can choose your first pet’s name and the street you lived on, you know that. That’s your stripper name. Oscar Locust.
Star: And where are you from, Oscar?
Marg: I am from Reno.
Joy: And you’re a stripper…
Marg: I’m a journalist.

Barbara: Oh baby, you got a little lipstick on… (Barbara wipes lipstick off Marg’s cheek) ‘cause you’ve been kissing too many of us.

Joy: You know, Marg, you cannot get through any place without all this CSI stuff.
Marg: You know, I see more and more every time I come.
Joy: So cute. (Marg is looking at some merchandise with CSI logos on them)
Marg: I don’t know if these have been endorsed or officially endorsed by CBS or Jerry Bruckheimer.
Joy: Oh really?
Marg: I don’t know. Well, that one probably is because they’re using the actual logo.
Joy: That’s cute. I like that Crime scene…

Star: What you guys may not…I’m sure you know it’s the number one show in the country. CSI is set right here in Vegas.

(Audience applause)

Marg: Thank you.
Star: So this is a familiar place for you. You guys actually get to come here a few times a year to shoot exteriors, etc. right?
Marg: Yes. Let me put my water down so I can answer your question.
Star: You do get to come here.
Marg: Yeah, four times a year. In fact, the last time was when it was blazing hot in August heat. And we get to see a lot of the city that most tourists never get to see, sort of the grungier areas.
Star: What’s the strangest thing that you learned about Las Vegas?
Marg: Well, you know, the strangest and most interesting thing, I guess, is always just the mix of people. It’s high-end and low-end and down and dirty with classy. One of the places we shot most recently was an area near the Stratosphere, which has…it’s populated by strip clubs and wedding chapels, every other…and one of the strip clubs actually has a billboard that advertised “Home of the five dollar lap dance.”
Star: The five dollar lap dance.
Marg: There wasn’t a long line.
Joy: That’s cheap!
Elizabeth: Worth every penny.
Marg: I set myself up for that, didn’t I?
Barbara: You know what I’m going to ask you…because your character, we’re talking about the show girls, some of them were wearing something here (Barbara makes motion to the top of the body), some of them weren’t. Your character Catherine was a stripper supposedly. And there are people who want flashbacks and they’d like to see you take it off.
Marg: Yeah…
Barbara: Is that ever going to happen? Or would you rather…
Marg: No, never. I really think it’s best for the audience’s imagination. And then they can just imagine whatever they want about me and what I did.
Barbara: So no stripping for Catherine, No stripping for Marg.
Marg: There actually was a flashback in the second episode, but I wasn’t actually, you know, wrapping myself around a pole.
Elizabeth: You weren’t working it. Now what about a relationship? Because, you know, Catherine has been…she’s had some flings, but nothing’s really…
Marg: I keep telling the producers that I’d love to have a relationship because, you know…
Barbara: What if you stripped?
Marg: If I stripped to get a relationship? You’re really pushing for this, Barbara.
Joy: Just don’t work at the five dollar place, okay?
Marg: No, no, no. That would be great just because it would give my character the opportunity to show a few more colors – her passionate side or intimate side or vulnerable side. Because we do a lot of cerebral work on the show, and playing opposite a swab or a computer screen, I’d much rather play opposite somebody like Gary Dourdan.
Star: Yeah, not bad at all. Lets all contemplate that.
Marg: I know. I hear you there.

Star: We’re actually going to get you to stay around with us for a little bit and actually explore this thing called the ‘CSI Effect’. Stay right there. We’ll be right back with Marg Helgenberger.

(Commercial Break)

Star: And we’re back with Marg Helgenberger. You know, the girls and I, we were talking about this ‘CSI Effect,’ where juries, real life juries, are now expecting cases to look like the ones on CSI. And lawyers are actually having to, during a jury selection, say ‘Do you watch CSI?’
Marg: I know, I think that will get me out of jury duty, probably at least with my run on the show. You know, the show, I sometimes feel guilty about that whole thing. But you know the show’s always been educational as well as entertaining. So we’re educating the public, and sometimes I guess we educate the criminals, I’m sorry to say. But we also educate the people who may have the misfortune of actual being involved in some kind of criminal act because they know to pull the hair out by…pull it out that way so you get a skin tag. So the criminalist can get that for DNA, because if it is just a loose hair, you can’t get DNA from it.
Star: Yeah. But most jurors today, they want to see blood evidence. They want forensics. They don’t want stuff that usually is just a crack head standing on the corner saw somebody shoot another person. That’s what really normally happens.
Marg: I know, and of course, we speed up the process.
Star: Yes indeed.
Marg: For storytelling purposes.
Barbara: Look what you have learned.
Marg: I’ve learned quite a bit, yes I have.
Barbara: Pull the hair out by the roots and stuff.

Barbara: But we want to learn a few personal things about you, some of which we know. Your husband Alan Rosenberg was a guest on your program a year ago.
Marg: Yes. It was one of the…not the season finale but close to it.
Barbara: Okay, so originally you two met on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope. And then you didn’t see each other for a long time. Nothing happened, no fireworks, and then you got together again because you were…
Marg: Well, four years later in LA… that was in New York… LA, I was opening up a bank account, and my second day there…and Alan was there, and we exchanged numbers, and I called him.
Barbara: That’s what I was getting at.
Joy: Did you really?
Marg: I did. I did.
Joy: What did you see? What did you see that you wanted?
Marg: Well, initially when we worked together on Ryan’s Hope, it was somebody who I thought was, first a terrific actor, and a really nice person, but very cute…
Joy: Smart
Marg: Very smart, very funny…
Barbara: So when you call him up, what do you say? ‘Well you didn’t call me, so I’m calling you.’
Marg: I think he was shocked that I called him. I mean, just because I don’t know if he was going to call me.
Barbara: He was so surprised, he married you!
Marg: I think he’s still surprised sometimes.

Meredith: And you have a fifteen- year-old son Hughie, who’s in the Audience. Nice to see you, Hughie. (shows Hughie in the audience)
Marg: You can use the mic, Hughie.
Meredith: I have to ask you, because I have a teenage son as well and a teenage daughter, and it’s not always easy. What is the hardest thing about raising a fifteen year old boy?
Marg: I would have to say homework. Making sure the homework gets done, thoroughly and neatly and specifically. And turning down the rap music.
Barbara: What’s the hardest thing for you having Marg as a mother?
Hughie: Nothing’s bad.
Elizabeth: That’s a smart answer.
Barbara: Awww, nothing’s bad.
Star: Awww, nothing’s bad.
Joy: He’s an only child too. How do you…you like being an only child, don’t you?
Hughie: Yep.
Joy: Yeah!

Meredith: We’re excited to tell the people of Las Vegas that you’re going to be sticking around here for a little bit because this weekend you’re hosting an event in support of the National Breast Cancer Foundation. What is that about? What’s the event?
Marg: It’s a world Bunco championship, which Bunco is a dice game that is apparently sweeping the nation.

(Audience applause)

Elizabeth: Popular I see.
Star: There are some Bunco addicts out there (pointing to the audience)
Marg: And my mother is a breast cancer survivor, twenty-three year survivor. I’ve, over the years I’ve raised awareness and money for various breast cancer causes. And you can come and play or come and watch.
Meredith: It will be a fun way to raise money.
Marg: A thousand women are playing at the Paris Hotel this Sunday, in fact.
Meredith: Are you going to play as well?
Marg: I’m not exactly sure. I mean, I might. It’s a pretty easy game. It’s all luck. There’s no skill involved.

Barbara: But she has the nicest mother. I met her mother. We did a program together and she’s lovely.
Marg: Thank you, Barbara. Thank you for saying that.
Joy: Is her name Helgenberger?
Marg: Well, she’s since remarried. My father died. She’s Snyder now.
Joy: Snyder
Barbara: A little easier.
Marg: Yeah, a little easier. Yes.

Star: Marg, we love having you here. You fit right in on this couch.
Marg: Thank you. I love being here.
Star: And we want to say thank you for coming to visit us.

Star: CSI airs Thursday nights, so check your local listings. Like you don’t know when CSI is.