Zuiker Called Ann-Margret To Guest Star On ‘CSI’

CSI creator Anthony Zuiker personally called legendary actress Ann-Margret to convince her to appear in the upcoming fourth episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’s eleventh season. (Spoilers after the jump!)

Ann-Margret plays Margot Wilton in the episode, which is called “Sqweegel”. Margot is a well-known philanthropist in Las Vegas. She took care of her ill, wheelchair-bound son until she decided to end his suffering. The character gets stalked by the titular Sqweegel, a serial killer from Zuiker’s Level 26 novels. The episode will air on October 14—the same day Zuiker’s second Level 26 novel, Dark Prophecy, hits store shelves.

In order to get Ann-Margret on the show, Zuiker picked up the phone himself. “Ann-Margret is very, very difficult to woo, so I called her up personally to tell her about the episode,” Zuiker told TV Guide. “She was on the Queen Mary making a voyage from London to New York, and the Queen Mary was gracious enough to print out the script out for her to read. And it scarred the crap out of her!”

The role was physically demanding for the actress. “She’s incredibly fit,” Zuiker said. “It was a very physical role—almost as many constraints as my villain, who is played by an actor who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most flexible man. She had to fall out of an attic, fall down stairs and crawl across the floor with bloody hands. She was game to do every bit of it—with a little assistance from a stunt double—all with a blade-wielding villain in her face. It was very taxing and she did a phenomenal job.”