Jorja Fox is best known for her role as Dr. Maggie Doyle in the television medical drama ER. Since then, Fox has had many successful appearances in television shows including The West Wing and most recently CSI: Crime Scene Investigation playing Sara Sidle. Fox talks about her career, how CSI changed her life, and what fans could expect this season.

Q: What does it feel like to reflect on your career and know that you have been on some of the biggest shows in history like ER

Fox: Oh wow. Thank you. I think it was huge at the time for me. I started on ER in season three and they were the number one show in the country and those numbers were bigger then what you see now because there was less television to choose from. People had to actually turn on the TV at the right time a lot of the bigger shows people wanted to watch live so they could talk about them the next day. So I was terrified. I hadnt watched ER and it was my moms favorite show and a lot of my friends favorite shows and I was absolutely terrified when I got the job because I felt like everyone in America was going to know I was an impostor and that I wasnt a good actorits just crazy.

Q: So after ER you did a ton of television shows and then you land CSI, which again is another huge show. Where was your mind set when you heard you got the role of Sara?

Fox: That was also a big surprise. I really didnt think that CSI was going to be successful. I fell in love with the story and the idea of it. Again, at the time it was really different and something that I hadnt really read about oftenbut I thought nobody was really going to watch a show about death on a Friday night that is just kind of not a really American culture thing to do and I was so wrong about that. I thought I would do CSI, have some fun and be back on The West Wing by Christmas. I thought the show was going to get canceled and here I am thirteen years later.

Q: How has Sara changed from Season one to Season thirteen?

Fox: I think in someways she really hasnt changed that much [laughs]. When we met Sara in 2000 I think she was very much a product of her past and her history and the things she experienced as a young kid. You know, her mother killed her father and she was in foster care for a period of time. I think that she had this drive to be apart of CSI that stems from her experiences as a kid. I think when she left in season 7 and was gone most of season 8 she had a time to wrestle those demons and maybe not feel like she is controlled by her past anymore. She kind of cleared all of the ghosts out for herself. Here we are in season thirteen and I feel like we have a very mature character who is just as passionate about the cases and just as invested but is somehow free of her history and that is kind of how I have been playing the character.

Q: What can fans look forward to this season?

Fox: I think so far we are in the middle of episode 7. I think we have an amazing season opening up and some great guest stars like oh you know what I dont know if I could say. We have some really interesting guest stars and a cooking show in episode four that is kind of based on these food contests on the food networks. There is funny stuff, there is haunting stuff ” I think the writers this year again suggested to me, they like to pick a theme every season, and this one is definitely going to be about darkness and going darker and going deeper. We start the season with a funeral and its not really until we get to the end of the episode that we find out why we are all there and whose funeral it is, who has passed. Its a very compelling and suspenseful episode.

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