She’s been working in some of the best shows on US TV for a full decade - ER and The West Wing among them. But it’s CSI which has made her a household name. We spoke to the actress on set of the world’s most popular show.

How is Season Six coming along?

It’s flying by - it’s almost over, which is weird, they go so fast now. The first couple of years you feel like three years of your life have passed when you finish a season, and now we blink and we’ve got five shows left or something. It’s been going really good, I think they’re some of the best stories we’ve told actually.

Do you get annoyed by all these copies?

I did. It’s a form of flattery I guess, and you’ve got to take that with a grain of salt. But it’s cool, because in the beginning, other than William Petersen who did Manhunter back in the ’80s, it was this topic that had been explored very minimally - a couple of documentaries, and we were first in with that.

What do you like best about your character?

I love that I’m playing someone who’s like worlds smarter than I am! It’s a really great feeling that - always a good reason to get out of bed, like “I went to Harvard and Berkeley and studied physics, nuclear fission…”

Did you watch a lot of TV as a kid?

I was a TV junkie - I still have to watch myself. There was a period, it was my babysitter and my best friend from age five to thirteen. Then I didn’t have one for ten years - I left home, and it was like “Oh there’s a real world, maybe I can do some of the shit I see on TV in the real world!” But certainly MASH is one of my all-time favourites. I love The Partridge Family, it was the baaad Brady Bunch. I liked the Brady Bunch too. As I got older I loved Charlie’s Angels and The Bionic Woman - there were some really cool shows with women that were sort of on TV for the first time. They’d show this bad-ass chick in high heels arresting people, I liked all those!

How do you find doing the more character-driven episodes?

I think we all get really excited. Also it’s kind of scary, especially if you’re going some place that the show hasn’t gone so much before. I feel I’ve been really lucky in that way, I’ve got to be the guinea pig a couple of times; it’s amazing and fun and terrifying, and I’m always just crossing my fingers and hoping that it works. It’s been really nice to see a lot of the other characters do that this year.

And how was getting to work with Quentin?

It was fantastic. It was madness - in the nicest way possible. He’s a really gracious, loving man, he knows everyone’s names and everyone hears a couple of times a day how wonderful they’re doing and it’s just a nice feeling. Especially at episode 23, when you’re at that point where the last thing you really care about on earth is your lines because you’re already virtually on vacation. And he came along, everybody just hooked in and gave it every last thing that they had for those twelve days or so. It was closest thing that I’ve been to in years to a feature film, so for a million reasons it was awesome.

You must have had offers for feature films during your hiatus?

Yeah, scary. I really wanted to, but I’m not a workaholic like many people in this town. I wanted to do it last year, I got offered a couple of things that I didn’t love, and then the stuff that I wanted to do I didn’t get, so I took it as a sign to goof off! This summer I’m going to be in London actually, I’m producing a play, a musical which is going out. It’s at the Riverside. I’m going to spend at least four weeks doing that and I’m still looking for a movie to do.

What are your thoughts on the closing gap in quality between TV and Movies?

Watching it for so long, from the time of Robin Williams on Mork and Mindy, to Michael J Fox, I’d always put movies on a pedestal and never really wanted to do TV at all. But TV kept calling me and saying “Hey you want a job?” Movies really hadn’t been calling all that much! (laughs) So finally I was able to forget movies. I have a little bit of that competitive energy now, I think the hierarchy puts movie stars way ahead of TV stars. At the same time, if you’re lucky as we have been, you’re entertaining like 25, 30 million people every week which most of these movie stars can’t say, so there’s that.

How do you deal with the pressure?

I think the really big part of that pressure falls on the writers’ shoulders more than us. Certainly we feel it a little bit, but those other guys have to come up with the stories to keep people tuning in from week to week. I’m sure people get really bored of us.

How much input into character do you get?

We’re pretty vocal (laughs) and Billy, to his credit, from the very beginning would have a very communal, collective way of working: you’d take a script and people might come in with their ideas and everybody hacks it out. And people are pretty open-minded to that. It’s pretty rare on TV.

What was the situation with holding out for more money?

(laughs) I wasn’t holding out for more money, I merely wanted a raise! There’s an understanding at least in the States in the last 35 years or so, that if a show is doing well and you’re lucky enough to be working on that show, not necessarily if you deserve it (laughs) but if you’re lucky enough it floats, it arrives there. And I, who had been spoiled enough to come from The ER and West Wing before I came to this show, had only really known that as an example of how things worked, so it’s a very normal thing in the television business that if a show is doing really well that every two years, many of the cast, including the crew and other people, will go in and ask for a raise. Anything can happen from that, and I’m sure you’ve seen some really dramatic stuff on TV where people really hold out for it, in this case nothing like that happened - they invited George and I not to come to work, and then they changed their minds.

Do you have a plan beyond CSI?

I’d love to be a producer when I grow up. I’m trying, like the play this summer and other than that I’m pretty open, I mean obviously I’ll keep acting as long as people keep being willing to work with me you know. I’m lucky, I’ve just done my tenth year on network television in a row, so I do think there’s a part of me that’s like, “Man, I should just go work on a farm for a year!” and then try and come back. Take a little break and get out of people’s living rooms (laughs).