This is not to say that Paula Newsome completely lacked context when it came to the “CSI” universe. “My sister was a huge fan of it,” she followed up, “and when I told her I got the job, she was more interested in whether Gil (William Petersen) and Sara (Jorja Fox) were coming back more than this new job I got.”
As we know now, Gil and Sara did return for “CSI: Vegas,” along with Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) and, in some recurring fashion, Hodges (Wallace Langham), Brass (Paul Guilfoyle), and others from the original “CSI.” Newsome must have had at least some sense of how important they and other characters are to fans of the show. In an exclusive Season 2 interview with Looper, Newsome said that arriving on set and taking it all in was like finding out Santa Claus is real.
Perhaps Newsome simply took the time to sit down with her sister and get a Cliff’s Notes version of “CSI” events and lore. Or maybe she did like fellow CBS actor Rose McIver (“Ghosts”) and only watched the first few episodes of the original series to prepare for her role – enough to understand the world she was entering, but not so many that she found herself limiting her performance.
