Playboy's 20Q: Jorja Fox

1

Playboy: When confronted with something gruesome, who is more likely to get queasy, you or your co-star Marg Helgenberger?

Fox: Me, for sure. Marg is one of the strongest and toughest women I've ever met. Recently, while filming scenes for CSI, she has been in a meat market working with carcasses, walked through garbage at a disgusting landfill in Santa Clarita, California and worked in the pouring rain for days. She's a badass--she internalizes her disgust. When Marg, George Eads and I were at that landfill, Marg went into shock for an hour and barely said anything. We'd ask, "Marg, are you OK?" and she'd just nod. George was trying not to get sick, and true to my Lower East Side New York City roots, I was screaming at the writers, "You guys are fucking crazy! You fucking suck," for maybe 10 minutes. Because I'm the squeamish one, they think it's funny to put me on the grossest cases, which they do consistently. That episode about the high school cheerleader who gets upset and eats one of her classmates? That was my case.

2

Playboy: Any pranksters on the show?

Fox: We take turns. One of the crew members--who will remain nameless--brought in a remote-controlled farting device. I had a lot of fun with that. One day I was in every scene, and as a new actor would come to the set, I would use the machine. We got Billy Petersen while he was on camera. And I got Marg in rehearsal. But Marg has a 12-year-old son and she barely blinked. I thought it would get her so much better than it did. I acted like it was me who had passed gas, and I just said, "Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me." She got it. But I was meaner with Billy and acted like he was the one who'd passed gas. That fart machine entertained us for an entire afternoon.

3

Playboy: Is craft service on CSI different from other shows?

Fox: There are several of us who have a hard time eating at work. If we're doing something disgusting, I have to wait until it's over before I will touch food. A couple of months ago I was working with Eric Szmanda and we were going through a guy's stomach contents. It's season three and we're feeling cocky, saying, "This doesn't even bother me." We've got this vomit on the table and we're picking pieces out of it, trying to decide what the guy had eaten. Then we broke for a meal, which was pizza that night. It was about 11:30 and we both said, "Oh yeah, let's have a slice. That sounds great." We went back to work and were on the set maybe 10 minutes before we were both completely nauseated.

4

Playboy: Has the show made you more life affirming or more cautious?

Fox: Life affirming. It's left me believing more that if it's your day, it's your day. I'm not stupid about my own safety, but I'd never want to be paranoid, either. Death is very close to life. It's always hovering closer than we'd like to think. But it doesn't scare me.

5

Playboy: What other franchises are in the works? CSI: The Hamptons?

Fox: CSI: Hawaii would be lovely. The only one I've heard of that seems to have credence is CSI: London, which would be an interesting show.

6

Playboy: What does it say about our society that we can't seem to get along without a lot of shows about crime and forensics?

Fox: We live in a gray world right now, and some of that grayness is great, certainly where social and moral issues are concerned. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. That's what makes CSI so reassuring: It's nice to watch something and find out without a shadow of a doubt what happened. But the amount of violence in this country is horrible. Michael Moore, in Bowling for Columbine--one of the best movies I've seen in the past 20 years--asks why America has such a thirst for violence. There are several good theories: We are only a hundred years from being a hunter-gatherer society. It's in our genes and we act that way in our daily lives. I also think people don't have enough sex.

7

Playboy: Would David Caruso be welcomed on CSI or would he and Bill Petersen out-earnest each other?

Fox: I'd love it if David Caruso were to do a show or two with us. I think he and Billy would have a good time together, though I don't know if they'd do it. As far as I'm concerned, David is welcome anytime, especially if he works with the ladies.

8

Playboy: Have you used any special investigative or forensic skills in your personal life?

Fox: No. I prefer to use my intuition, which is wrong half the time. If I were to use too much information from the show, I would become Howard Hughes paranoid.

9

Playboy: Have you ever asked for DNA samples from a date?

Fox: No. I hope I wouldn't have to, but it's great that (continued on page 145)Jorja Fox(continued from page 123) it's available. There are a lot of men finding out that they aren't, in fact, fathers, and it's a healthy thing for them to know one way or the other.

10

Playboy: Are people creepier in real life or on television?

Fox: I guess that depends on where you hang out. People are creepy in real life, but there is something much creepier about people who are seemingly normal but can act like serial killers. But I have to come to their defense because I'm an actor. The schizophrenic positions that we put ourselves in for a living are pretty disturbing to outsiders, but not to me.

11

Playboy: Which star of a comedy show would you like to see as a victim on CSI? Fox: Larry David! I'd love to see him naked in the morgue. I've never met him, but I love his show. He's brilliant and funny, and it would be great to see him play a corpse.

12

Playboy: If the cast of Friends is worth millions of dollars per episode and they just sit around....

Fox: Then there's certainly hope for actors everywhere that there's no ceiling on employment.

13

Playboy: What's the worst-smelling thing in the lab?

Fox: Burned human skin. Sometimes we wish the show were scratch-and-sniff, because we have to pretend that we're encountering bad smells all the time. Maybe that's for season four or five.

14

Playboy: You go home after filming an episode that involves a particularly grisly crime. What do you fix for yourself?

Fox: Probably a cold beer and a hot bath, and I might have nightmares. Right now I really like Pilsner Urquell beer--a lot.

15

Playboy: We understand you're allergic to marriage. What are the symptoms?

Fox: Heart palpitations. And a feeling that I can't get enough oxygen. Cold sweats come with that. A burning desire to get into a fast car and drive quickly out of state. I have an inability to properly communicate, then the phone mysteriously breaks so I can't return calls. I hope to get over it someday, actually. I believe in true love and commitment and intimacy. That stuff is great. But, yes, I have this little problem.

16

Playboy: Do you get out of paying for speeding tickets?

Fox: Who says I speed? No, I would never do that. Maybe there are a couple of things I would try to get out of if caught. But for the most part, I would take responsibility. I'm not a huge speeder. I have a speed warning on my car. I set it at a certain speed and try not to go over it. But when I'm in the car and the music is up, I could look down and be 20, 25 miles over the limit.

17

Playboy: For security reasons, have you been thoroughly frisked lately?

Fox: Yeah, actually, I have. Isn't it a normal part of air travel these days? I took a flight with Gary Dourdan and George. We were flying first-class from Los Angeles to Vegas and had one-way tickets. We were stopped at every possible point along the way, probably six times. Our shoes were off, our pants were rolled up. My shirt was up to here, the guys' shirts were off. It was kind of fun to share that with two other people. I realize it was because of the one-way tickets. I support the airlines and the things they have to do to keep travel safe, but that one was a bit much--a threesome frisk. I saw parts of George and Gary that I hadn't noticed before. And that was comforting.

18

Playboy: We understand you can play Stairway to Heaven on guitar. Do you do any other solo tributes?

Fox: I have never been good at cover songs, mostly because it's so obvious that you can't play when you do them. If I make something up, I can fool people for a while. But the minute you offer up a song people know, they find out whether you're good or not. I can play a little bit of Van Morrison and Traffic, some Beatles stuff and a little Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I was madly in love with a boy in junior high school who played guitar. I picked up the guitar because I thought it would be a way to hang out with him. When I stopped hanging out with him, I kept playing. I have a 1967 Rickenbacker hollow-body electric. It's beautiful. And I have a Yamaha acoustic, a brilliant guitar. It was a gift from some friends many years ago. Having a guitar that beautiful inspires me to get better.

19

Playboy: Besides your name, what do you have alternative spellings for?

Fox: My mom made up Jorja. I spent the first 10 years of my life convincing people that I knew how to spell my name. Everyone tried to tell me I couldn't spell. I'm not a good talker. I'm not very verbal, so I don't have alternative names for most things. I'm lucky if I can get something out that's more than two syllables. In English.

20

Playboy: Has anyone made a charming play on your last name? And how did you reward it?

Fox: Yes. I stayed for breakfast.