Alyssa (E!): Obviously, Jorja, you’re the returning vet. How is this iteration of CSI the same as the original, and how has it changed and grown?

Jorja Fox: You know, I don’’t think much of it is really going to be the same. I think it’s really a new day and we’re in new times, and I think the show is gonna be very reflective of what’s happening now, not only in the world but certainly in world of criminalistics and forensics. The cool thing, for me, is that Sara and Gill are back. That’s probably the thing that is sort of the same. But they are even a little different because they’ve been traveling the world together for the last five years, and they haven’t been under the pressure of being in the lab, in Vegas, and the tough stuff that you see there. They’re kind of light and fun. Well at least in the beginning yeah,

Alyssa (E!): Was it easy, stepping back into the role of Sara? Or did you have to find her again?

Jorja Fox: You know, I was really worried that I was gonna have to find her, it was crazy easy for me to step into that role. I love the character, just my favorite character I’ve ever played obviously, and it was a joy to just sort of wake her up, shake her off.

Alyssa (E!): Paula, you know, we’re so excited to see you on CSI because we love you from Barry. What excited you most about joining this sequel of CSI? What drew you to this particular project?

Paula Newsome: Working with the actors, [like] Jorja. It’s such a pleasure day to day. It’s such a pleasure. Billy, our showrunner Jason Tracy, and I’ll tell you we have amazingly fabulous kind group of folk on this, you know what I mean? Matt, Mandeep, Mel. We’re just so lucky. We’re so lucky.

Alyssa (E!): Talk to us a little bit about your new leader role at the Crime Lab because there’s a new boss in town, and she’s got to work with these old faces. So talk to us about what it was being. Head of the crime lab, Paula?

Paula Newsome: I am the youngest daughter. Yeah, I’m the youngest of three girls, so it feels kind of like get get some payback. I enjoy it. It’s just nice being able to, as a woman, you know, sometimes we don’t get a chance to just like spread step into our strength and power in a way that is received and even encouraged. In this role, I get to do that and it feels very natural and welcome and I appreciate that.

Alyssa (E!): Let’s talk a little bit about the dynamics between the old school veterans and these new crime scene investigators. What can you guys tease about what’s to come because we know there’s some drama ahead for the season.

Jorja Fox: There’s two really cool through lines that you’ll see in the whole season. One is a case that we will try and solve throughout the journey of the show, and then the other, the other through line here is every week we’re going to have a really amazing, cool, dark sometimes creepy story line that would generally resolve within that sort of 44 minutes that we have to tell the story. It’s a lot to try and get into one show every week, you know, but Jason Tracy has done an amazing job, like a magician, a true magician at telling new stories in a show that had already 15 years worth of stories over 300 episodes and then a couple of other CSI [shows] that also had stories and the audience is gonna get to see new cool stuff that they haven’t seen. So that’s really exciting.

And then the science I think is really a thrill and a half, like I think the science is really the other main cast member of the show. Maybe the story behind uh and in the science. Even though it’s 21 years later, is continuing to evolve. Like weekly hourly, there’s new stuff unfolding. So we have this, this amazing asset of having this technology that’s going to continue to do to show you stuff that we’ll get to talk about

Paula Newsome: And like, imagine, imagine Alyssa, it’s like when I take going take my laptop in or something like that. They’re like, “Oh, you got this last week and there’s like five more iterations of it,” right? Imagine since the beginning we just started in 20 years ago. How much science has progressed over that period of time? That’s where we get the things, that’s where we get to flower.