CSI: Vegas - Sara’s Alive, But Leaving the Show

I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but check out this latest Ausiello interview with Jorja Fox. She is leaving the show. Here’s an excerpt:

Congratulations on surviving the Miniature Killer.
Jorja Fox: Thank you! It wasn’t easy! [Laughs]

Was it as physically grueling to shoot those scenes as it appeared?
Fox: It was so much more fun than I thought it was going to be. Traditionally, I’m the wimp of the cast. I’m the one who’s more sensitive to the blood and stuff. I was so happy to get through it without even a scratch. Of course, everyone took such amazing care of me. I really do believe that we have the best stuntpeople and the best special-effects people in the business. I knew I was in very good hands, but I was nervous, for sure.

I imagine it had to have been pretty hot, shooting in the desert.
Fox: I think it was more grueling on the crew. I had a couple of days where I got to the desert at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. By the time I got there, it had cooled off to around 104. [Laughs] We sent one person to the hospital the first day with heat exhaustion, but he was fully recovered by the next day. I was lucky because I was wet for a lot of the episode, and that really took the edge off.

Was it always the plan for Sara to survive? Reports surfaced last spring that Sara was actually supposed to die in the finale, but you had refused to show up to shoot your death scene.
Fox: Well, you know, Mike, you can’t believe anything you read in those gossip magazines. And for all of us who were invested in the integrity of the story, we didn’t want to say yes or no to any of those reports, because we didn’t want to [ruin the outcome for viewers]. But none of that stuff is ever true. I was really flattered that people were that interested in me, though. [Laughs] The biggest challenge was keeping my mouth shut. Whenever you start reading stuff like that — especially if it’s not super-flattering — the first thing you want to do is defend yourself. So it was challenging to sit quiet and wait. I’m so thrilled that the wait is over. I had to lie to my relatives, I had to lie to my friends…. It’s hard.

Well, since you don’t have to keep the secret any longer, can you state for the record that there was no truth to reports that you skipped work because you didn’t want to shoot a particular scene?
Fox: The reason I’m going to barely answer this question is because I made it a point in my life not to address anything that’s written in those magazines. And I feel like if I start now, there’s a whole litany of stuff over the last seven years that’s been written about me, and I don’t want those guys to think I’m ever going to answer to them, because I’m not going to. It pertains to CSI, it pertains to my personal life… And I decided a long time ago that I was going to stay out of it. I was going to let the fiction that they print read like fiction. I know people enjoy those magazines, but I’m not going to engage. So in that way, I’m going to almost not answer your question. But what I can say is it was true that my contract was up, and so CBS and I had been in active conversations since about January of ‘07.

We’re hearing that you are leaving the show after only a handful of episodes. What happened?
Fox: Again… I can’t answer those questions right now. I would love, at some point in the future, to talk with you again. Because I am under contract with the show at this point, I’m not actually allowed to talk about storylines that haven’t aired yet. So since I’ve already been sitting in a pile of secrecy since last April, I’m going to have to keep the secret a little longer. I apologize. [Laughs]

OK, well, let’s discuss the fact that your contract is up. What’s been going through your mind?
Fox: It’s interesting, I’ve never had a job in my life where my contract ended. In TV you’re so lucky if you can be on a show for two years. It was a really sort of profound and strange feeling to be coming — at least contractually — to the end of a run. My contract was the first to come up. The contracts for all the other regulars on the show will be up at the end of this year.

Be sure to go read the entire interview here.

_{CSI, cbs, CSI las vegas, tv, Television, Jorja Fox, Michael Ausiello}