An Episode With: Julianna Margulies

Dr. Nancy Jaax (Julianna Margulies) at the security gate of Fort Derrick in a scene from her new mini-series, The Hot Zone. Photo / Supplied

The Hot Zone is a mini-series based on Richard Preston's New York Times best-seller of the same name and is inspired by the terrifying true story of the origins of the Ebola virus and its first arrival on American soil in 1989.

When this deadly virus suddenly appears in a research lab outside of Washington D.C, a heroic scientist risks her life to head off the outbreak before it spreads to the human population. Julianna Margulies, who plays that scientist, Nancy Jaax, talks with Sarah Daniell.

Julianna Margulies in Los Angeles. Margulies stars in the upcoming limited series The Hot Zone.

You're on the publicity trail for The Hot Zone right now. How is that going, what's been the response?

It's good - it's been a very interesting reaction - people are really affected by this mini-series so I'm thrilled that it came out so well and that people are finding it to be an important topic.

One thing that struck me was a scene where you are behind a glass wall, locked in a sealed room and there's a group of men on the other side. They push a button which renders you completely silent. It's a most terrifying prospect, in terms of losing your voice, do you agree?

Wow ... [yes] ... especially right now in our country it's quite a metaphor for women, where women seem to be standing, lately.

And yet you have a powerful voice - you're the most awarded actress for the SAG awards next to Julia Louis-Dreyfus - you have a voice. Do you still feel like it's a struggle?

I think my instincts often at first, tend towards why stir the mud? I'm more of a private person. I don't tweet. Or do social media. I don't read about myself. I like to live my life and do my work. I don't like to say anything that will put me in the spotlight more than I need to be. But I find that desperate times call for desperate measures, to quote Shakespeare and I feel like now is the time when no woman can stay mute. We all have to raise our voices and speak truth to power and that is the way it has to be - I'm luckily at a place in my life where I don't really care if someone thinks I'm making a fuss and being loud. The reason I speak for the women coming up in this business - because it's the one industry or place where I have a little bit of power, if any at all - is to try to make their path a little smoother by refusing to accept terms that seem unequal.

Julianna Margulies, as Alicia, in The Good Wife, for which she won multiple awards. Photo / Supplied

Who was that for you, as a young woman?

The only person that resonated with me in terms of trying to stay strong and have a voice was probably Gloria Steinem. Women like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who my grandmother blazed a trail for, in the world of law. My grandmother was one of the first women who graduated from NYU law school in 1924. The story that struck me - and maybe it's why I am outspoken - is that in 1924 she took the New York bar exam and passed. And then when she went to join the bar she was told "men only". This was a decorated woman with a law degree, who had passed all proper the tests and was told she couldn't join the club, so to speak. She wasn't loud, in terms of fighting back. But instead she started the Women's Bar Association of the Bronx. She rounded up a bunch of classmates and it still exists today and has more than100 members.

Why did that story resonate particularly for you?

It resonated so loudly because in 1924 no one was listening at all to women. We had only just got the vote three years earlier. So it stuck with me - if she could do it then, god knows I can do it now. And so she probably was my biggest inspiration, really.

The Hot Zone deals with issues around fear - how people respond in curious ways when they are fearful. What makes you fearful?

I feel most afraid when right now our government is run by a lunatic and a bunch of science deniers who refuse to believe that there is global warming. Or that we need the right support for our scientists to find a cure for what is a pandemic disease. So my biggest fear is people who do not educate themselves on these issues and who speak out of ego and self-promotion rather than what's best for the world. That puts me in a tremendous amount of fear every day. I fear for all of us and my child's future.

Where do you feel safe?

My safe place is knowing that there are really good people in the world. If history has shown us anything, it's that in the end the good will win out. I have to have faith in that, otherwise I couldn't get out of bed in the morning.

Julianna Margulies portrays nurse Carol Hathaway in the NBC television drama series ER. Photo / Supplied

You talk about your son. How do you feel about the world he is to inherit?

One of the things I love about The Hot Zone - and I did a lot of press with Nancy Jaax in Los Angeles - sitting next to her and hearing her answer questions pertaining to science, is she said that middle schoolers, so 10-13 - love the book The Hot Zone. I had asked her, do you think my son, who is 11 could watch this show? He hasn't seen anything I've done and, well, The Good Wife was a little over his head and ER was so long ago - she said it's the young children who are the ones scientists are trying to reach out to because it takes years and years of learning to do what she does.

She's a pathologist and she has to learn about all these different pathogens and agents and how to find a cure and a vaccine. We need young scientists and young people today to get excited about science so we can make the world a better place and a safer place. So I was so thrilled to be able to say to him, guess what we're gonna watch on Monday night? We're going to get all your friends over, and we're gonna get you excited about science. Because without it we won't have the world we are so lucky to have. So we need to protect it. I feel like the most important thing we can do right now is to educate children on the joys of science.

What did you make of it, at his age, as a subject?

For me growing up, maybe I didn't have a good teacher but it just never interested me. Because no one seemed excited about it. Now more than ever we need to say to our children, "Science is cool, science is a great thing to get into." Now he's 11 and I would never ask him what he wants to be when he grows up but I would like to let him know that science is an option.

THE LOWDOWN: The Hot Zone, June 10, 12.30pm (all six episodes play back-to-back), National Geographic, Sky Channel 72. Also available on Sky GO and Sky On Demand.