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Bubba: Has it hit you yet that you’re on, like, the number one television show in the world?

Jorja Fox: No, absolutely not. I don’t know if it’ll ever really hit me. I don’t really know, I mean it’s kind of like fantastically overwhelming to think of.

Bubba: And it’s not like you’re a bit player in the show, that you like are taking credit for the whole show, you’re actually are the show.

Jorja Fox: Well that’s very nice of you to say that. There’s like 140 of us that make the show.

Bubba: Well I know but you are- you’re one of the key elements of that show.

Jorja Fox: I get to be there every week, you know. I always have something to do and I got to be there almost from the very, very beginning, which is something new for me. You know I was lucky enough I got to be on two other shows that did really well but I came in- They were already runaway, huge hits by the time I came on and this was the like big wildcard risk, who knew what was gonna happen kind of thing.

Dave: With the popularity of CSI, and your being so busy, that- I would guess that would be enough to make it so you didn’t know even how popular the show was or anything. You’re so busy doing…

Jorja Fox: Yeah, you know, it’s very ethereal, you know. It comes out in the newspaper and the ratings and, and everyone’s very happy. And I’ve never really been a ratings watcher but we shoot up in this very small rural sort of area north of Los Angeles and you’re sorta up there. It’s almost like being on location every day. And you’re just kinda doing what you do and you hear about it and you know, it’s??? it’s like, you know, being on a magic carpet ride. It’s been just incredible.

Bubba: And you’re great, by the way.

Jorja Fox: Well, thank you very much.

Bubba: Which- which helps.

Jorja Fox: It doesn’t happen, you know? I mean this doesn’t happen to anyone. The odds of this happening to anyone are like one in a billion.

Dave: Someone ??? who was it? - said you have better odds of getting colon cancer.

Bubba: What a horrible way to think of that.

Jorja Fox: Yeah, I know.

Dave: It is kind of a weird analogy.

Jorja Fox: There are better odds of anything almost happening to you probably than this.

Dave: So you film an hour and a half north of L.A.

Jorja Fox: Yeah.

Dave: And you drive there every day?

Jorja Fox: Well we drive. It’s about 45 minutes, it’s about 90 minutes round trip. I mean we all usually drive there. Every once in awhile we’ll stay up there if we’ve got a big grind or sometimes you’re just beat and you know. I stayed up there just last week.

Bubba: Why ??? why do you tape all the way up there?

Jorja Fox: Well, originally, you know, there wasn’t a lot of money for the show, and we really wanted to focus most of it.

Bubba: Well, that’s changed!

Jorja Fox: Yeah. Maybe, I don’t know. That’s focused a lot on the special effects. They really wanted the effects to be good. And also, it’s a good master of Vegas. Like up there it’s high desert country, and at least the exterior area. If you can’t do the city Vegas, which we come down, we shoot in downtown L.A. for that, sometimes or we go to Vegas to get that. But we can do the deserts, and we can do the mountains and a lot of stuff.

Dave: They always remind me of old Barnaby Jones.

Jorja Fox: Nice, thanks, excellent!

Dave: I think it’s cool. I love that area.

Bubba: I remember the first time I watched CSI. A friend of mine said, “You’ve gotta watch this show.” We work weird hours and we don’t get a chance to watch it.

Jorja Fox: You guys are morning guys, right? Yeah, so that’s late for you.

Bubba: But I remember I sat down and watched it.

Jorja Fox: Thank you.

Bubba: And I was hooked. Immediately. It’s one of those shows that if anybody listening knows about it, hears about it, the popularity of it, all you have to do is watch it once. And the one show that stands out in my mind is the show with the uh- the little people. You remember that show?

Jorja Fox: That was last year, yeah.

Bubba: It was the little people convention. How much research went into every single show because-

Jorja Fox: Phenomenal amounts done on every show.

Bubba: There are things in that I never thought about. It was great.

Jorja Fox: It was cool. It was sort of the largest assembly of little people actors since Over the Rainbow and before that The Wizard of Oz. So it was really fun and you know a lot of ??? you know a ton of those actors knew each other and it was really cool to work with all those guys. They were great people.

Dave: The opening song is that the thing that uh you can hear from anywhere in the house, wherever you are, and you hear that, the opening from The Who, and you know, boom!, it’s begun.

Jorja Fox: That’s still, you know, my favorite part of the show. Every week is the song with the credits.

Dave: Me too! Same thing! Because the way it’s edited, with the ??? they do the opening of the show with whatever the scene is or whatever.

Jorja Fox: The teaser.

Dave: And then, boom!, man, right into that. And that song was just so perfect for that.

Jorja Fox: So compelling. It was unbelievable that we were able to get that song. And it was Billy’s idea. Billy Peterson was like, “No, this song. This song.”

Dave: No way!

Jorja Fox: And everybody’s like, “We don’t have the money for this. No way we’re gonna get this song.” And then they talked to Pete Townsend and it happened and it was a coup. I mean, it was really an amazing moment to get that song.

Bubba: Have you ever had a scene where there’s a body and obviously it’s either an actor.

Jorja Fox: I have a lot of scenes where there’s a body.

Bubba: I know. But my point is, it was so realistic looking, so gross looking, that you almost got sick?

Jorja Fox: It happens all the time to me. It still happens. I’m going into four years of this and that still happens to me on a regular basis.

Bubba: And I mean even though you know it’s either an actor with all kinds of makeup on or a dummy.

Jorja Fox: Yeah, a live, a real live actor.

Bubba: And you’re like gaaak?

Jorja Fox: Yeah, it’s pretty gnarly. The special effects guys…

Bubba: They’re amazing.

Jorja Fox: I think we have the best special effects guys in the business. They’re really fantastic between the makeup and the effects that we do and …

Bubba: I think the coolest thing is like when they’ll show like the scene of someone getting shot but then the bullet hits the body and then they follow the bullet into the body and threw the heart and into the lung.

Jorja Fox: Sick and crazy.

Bubba: And you’re like, ugh!

Dave: And you’ll sit here and tell us with a straight face that there’s nothing erotic about that. *laughter all around* We’re talking to Jorja Fox.

Jorja Fox: Wait, I’m sorry, is that about the dead body or about the bullet that, uh ???

Bubba: Jorja, I don’t work with him.

Dave: The new season of CSI starts tonight, 8 PM. Thank you, Jorja Fox.

Jorja Fox: Thank you guys so much, and take it easy.