January 13, 2014

Aisha: For 12 years, our first guest played the tough as nails Catherine Willows on the groundbreaking crime series CSI. Now she is starring as the head of an elite government cyber security agency, tracking down terrorists on CBS’ new hit drama Intelligence. Take a look…(Clip from Intelligence is shown). From TV’s number 1 new show, please welcome Marg Helgenberger!

Greetings from the hosts (hard to tell who is speaking): Gorgeous! Oh my God! Gorgeous! You get more and more beautiful, Marg. Everyday.
Marg: Bring it on!

Julie: Now I have a question, because when you first became well known, a lot of people had a hard time pronouncing your first name. They didn’t call you…
Marg: They still do! (laughs)
Julie: They’d call you Marge, Marjorie, or something…
Marg: Yes.
Julie: Is there…but it is Marg. Is there a story behind being called Marg?
Marg: Well, it’s…Mary Marg is my full name and when I was a baby and my sister, my “Irish twin sister”, was…she couldn’t pronounce Mary Marg. It came out (attempts to mimic her sister)…well, however it came out…my mother started going ‘Margi’ and so I was Margi for years and years, through college. I don’t know why I chose to just become Marg – I just dropped the ‘i’.
Sara: But you…even on your first TV job, you were called Margi, right?
Marg: (laughs) My weather girl gig?
Sara: You went by Margi McCarty?
Marg: Well, that came about because — that was a summer thing that I, you know, it was a small station in Kearney, Nebraska and um…
Sheryl: (starts clapping) Yay!
Marg: Are you from Nebraska?
Sheryl: Yeah, I grew up in Omaha.
Marg: Oh you did?
Sheryl: Yeah.
Marg: My mom lives there now, and my brother and sister-in-law live there.
Sheryl: Really? We’ll talk on the break.
Marg: Definitely! Umm anyway, so this station, the anchor team… Go see the movie Nebraska! (Laughs). Anyway, umm, the anchor team consisted of Harvey Knocklinger, Joyce Eisenminger, and then I would have come on…
Julie: Harvey Knocklinger?!
Marg: Harvey Knocklinger.
Julie: I worked for him in Dayton, Ohio!
Sharon: He became the one…
Julie: No, he wasn’t the one. He became news anchor. Go on! Not about Harvey. Well then, with Helgenberger, they were probably like…
Marg: Yeah. Too many syllables…Helgenberger, Knocklinger, and what was…Eisenminger. So I was the low person on the totem pole…
Sara: Well, we actually have some footage to show you of that. Let’s take a look… (weather girl clip is shown, everyone laughs.)

Aisha: Margi McCarty!
Marg: Oh My God!

Marg: (mocks herself, using a munchkin voice): ‘Looks like some more hot weather!’ Where did that come from? That voice? I made that map too!
Sheryl: You made that map by yourself?!
Marg: With magic marker, oh yeah! It was rural…it was a rural station, so I had to do my own, you know, compile my own information.

Sheryl: So, little did those of us who were in Nebraska, little did we know you were going to grow up to kiss George Clooney on TV!
Marg: I was a lucky one…it was such a long time ago.
Julie: On ER.
Marg: Yes, it was on ER. The second season of ER and yes, he was a good kisser. He was a lot of fun. He’s, you know, you would expect him to be fun, and he’s very smart and like to have a good time…
Julie: He’s a prankster. Did he ever pull a prank on you?
Marg: He didn’t pull a prank on me, although I do recall he was a good sport. We had this one scene that took place in a Blues bar. And they were playing this sexy blues music and I came around to him and, you know, wanted him to dance with me. He had that Caesar hair cut. Remember when he had that hair? And I ruffled up his hair like on the take. And we got on the dance floor, and if you look closely you can see him, as the music is swelling, “Okay, fix the hair.” (everyone laughs). He never said anything afterward. He kind of went along with it. He was cool with it.

Aisha: Well, as I said in the open, congratulations on your new hit CBS series Intelligence.
Marg: Thank you.
Aisha: You play Lillian Strand, the director of a Cyber Security agency. Tell us a little bit about her character.
Marg: Yes, head of this agency, it’s a legitimate agency, Cyber Command. And I, you know, I’m the one that’s making all the tough decisions — how to thwart all the security threats, national security threats. And I’m also the architect of a program called Clockwork, which is the micro chip that is implanted in Josh Holloway’s character’s brain that can interface with the information grid. Also can pull up…works with his imagination as well as this data. So it’s… the show takes place all over the world basically.
Aisha: And you’re very much in charge here. You’re kind of all business. But apparently there’s a lot of online chatter because you wear a wedding ring on the show.
(Photo of Marg as Lillian Strand shown. And then close up of the wedding ring)
Marg: Yes. Well, when we shot the pilot, the prop guys…they said “Watches, glasses, sunglasses whatever.” ‘What about a wedding ring?’ I said. ‘Why not a wedding ring?’ And because I thought this is a woman who’s having to make very tough decisions and I think it would be…I wanted her to have a good man (Sheryl and audience clap) that she had to go home to. Who was very emotionally supportive. Because I think that’s a really hard job.
Marg: Yes, right.

Sharon: Now we had your co-star on…
Marg: Josh.
Sharon: Josh, last week, Josh Holloway. And he said that he has a nickname for you. And the nickname he has for you is G-Pudding.
Marg: Yes, G-Puddin’, I don’t know how he even came up with that. He just…
Sharon: But what do you call Josh?
Marg: I didn’t make it up, I think Meghan Ory made it up. He’s called Peaches.
Julie: Peaches? Where does that come from?
Marg: I think maybe because he’s from Georgia or something.
Julie: That’s the whole drawl he has.
Marg: Yes, he’s from Georgia. He’s actually, we have similar…he’s from a tiny town in Georgia as I’m from a tiny town in Nebraska. So we have a lot of, we share a lot of stories. Some of the tough jobs we had as kids. He’s a great guy. He’s kind of a stud, actually.
(Audience applauds)
Julie: A stud, but like humble.
Marg: Oh, he’s very nice.

Julie: Now your character, Lillian, has some great shoes on the show. However, you tweeted out that your shoes are killing you.
Marg: (Marg is bleeped. But can read her lips are saying “They were effing killing me”) is what I said. (Everyone laughs). You know it was one of those things. in the store they fit fine. You know I walked around…
Sara: Yes, three hours later.
Marg: But then I have to do this take after take after take and spewing out all this stuff about ‘This is this generation’s Manhattan project and blah blah blah blah blah’ and I’m like these shoes are killing me. And having to look on top of it, that’s the challenge.
Julie: See, you had better shoes on CSI. You didn’t have to wear heels.
Marg: No, boots.
Julie: More sensible.
Marg: Yes, it was much more sensible.
Julie: Well, they look great so you keep wearing it well, Marg.

Julie: Marg Helgenberger, everybody! Intelligence airs tonight at 10PM right here on CBS.