Helgenberger Prepares To Move On, Teases Career Change For Catherine

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’s leading lady Marg Helgenberger (Catherine Willows) discusses her reasons for saying goodbye to the hit drama and what she plans to do next. (Potential spoilers after the jump!)

After working on CSI for 11 years, Helgenberger is ready to hang up her lab coat and try something different. As CSI Files previously reported, the actress is planning to leave the series after the current season ends. “We start shooting in mid July and go until the end of April the following year,” Helgenberger told Scotsman.com, and the grueling schedule is one reason she’s ready to move on. She added, “The days on set run to a minimum of 12 hours. Thank goodness it’s an ensemble which means we don’t work every day, but the pace is relentless. And these are the easy years.”

Things were tougher in the beginning, when CSI was a new series and the cast was working 16-hour days. In the years since then, Helgenberger has devoted a large portion of her life to the crime drama. “The thought that I was spending more time as Catherine than myself scared me sometimes,” she said. “Yes, it’s physically taxing, but my decision has less to do with my dissatisfaction with the show, and more to do with me getting the real itch to do other things and to explore other aspects of my life.”

Helgenberger is open to trying different things once she leaves CSI, and she currently has her eye on the London stage. “I was in London last year on my break and I saw an American play that my friend from North Western University had written,” she explained. “I see a lot of theatre in New York but hadn’t been to London theatre in six years and found it incredibly exciting.”

Before she can pursue roles in London, Helgenberger has to finish up her run on CSI. The actress said she doesn’t want to see her character leave the series in a body bag, and she knows the fans feel the same way. “[E]ven though I haven’t discussed it with [executive producer] Carol [Mendelsohn], we have a broad idea of how she would leave the show,” Helgenberger revealed. She teased, “Well, it would involve her going back to her roots. She’s a Vegas girl born and bred, and her father was a casino mogul, so I think that she might be looking for a career change.”

You can find the full interview, featuring quotes from Mendelsohn and Helgenberger’s costar George Eads (Nick Stokes), on Scotsman.com.