One Final Question - Jorja Fox

What’s it like to be upstaged by strange fibers and fluids?

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is the top-rated drama in the US, but there are two spin-offs now. Does it annoy you that CSI: Miami and now CSI: NY are sponging off your ratings?

Well, they say it’s a great form of flattery, right? I think in the beginning we were all quite afraid. Our show in the States had barely got on its legs and already we were going to have competition from the inside. So it was kind of terrifying and maybe not entirely welcomed by the cast. The good thing that’s come out of it is it’s kept everybody on our show humble and hungry.

We’ve had Miami and New York - what British fans are wondering is when are we going to see CSI: Birmingham?

Do they really wonder that?

Well, not really.

We’ll see! It would probably work, but luckily enough for you guys, you don’t have quite a violent society as America has. Myself, I’m rooting for maybe CSI: Hawaii, or CSI: Maldives.

The show’s always full of amazingly detailed procedures and fascinating information. What’s the craziest fact you’ve learned over the past six years?

Well, one of the things I’d never really thought about is when you go into a hotel room. The physical history of the people that have been there before you is all there, laid out, but not visible to the eye.

You mean fluids and hairs?

Oh yeah, all that. There’s a story told in every room. CSI, the TV show, has the best forensic equipment in the country - which is sort of sad - so we get to locations and all our stuff works. You turn on the ultraviolet lens and go “urrggh!”

With all you know now, if you were to commit a brutal murder, how would you avoid getting caught?

I do believe I know how to commit the perfect murder.

Want to tell us?

No, I couldn’t possibly! And I should never brag about it. I was having a morbid conversation [on the subject] with one of our technical advisers, and we have a security guy on location who’s special-forces trained. The two of them came up with what they thought was the easiest way to get away with a murder.

So if actors from the other CSI series start disappearing, we know who to go to.

Yeah right! I’ll be a lead suspect. I’m a pacifist though, I must admit.

Is your character Sara Sidle ever going to get it on with Grissom?

Oh gosh. We’ve had this crazy dance for many years - off and on, odd and on. But I still have faith for that storyline, particularly because of all the darkness these characters live with on a daily basis. It would be just a little stream of light in their lives.

As an actor, do you relish the challenge of kissing a man with a beard?

[laughs] I don’t want to come across as too experiences, but I have kissed a man or two with a beard in the past. With the right guy, it can actually be quite pleasant.

Some of CSI’s scenes are really gross. What’s the closest you’ve come to losing your dinner?

Oh yeah. Six years of that and I’m the most squeamish member of the cast! I really feel like the writers give me those scenes intentionally because they think it’s funny. It’ll affect my day, my lunch. Two seasons ago, Eric Szmanda [CSI’s Greg Sanders] and I were looking through the stomach contents of a victim. They had brought in pizza because we were working late, and both of us almost got sick. Even though it’s make-believe, a lot of our stories are based on real events. It has less to do with what I’m looking at than why I’m looking at it - how they died.

You’re up for World’s Sexiest Vegetarian this year. Have you been on the website, voting for yourself?

Once I did, and I wondered if I could get away with repeat voting. There’s stiff competition.

Isn’t “world’s sexiest” discriminatory against all the ugly vegetarians out there?

[laughs] That’s very true.

One final question: is it depressing or frustrating being an actor in a series where the real stars are carpet fibers and glass fragments?

They steal every scene in the show! I’ve been consistently upstaged by things that in my more vain moments I never thought I get upstaged by. I get upstaged by the soles of shoes …