Julianna Margulies Previews the Terrifying True Story of ‘The Hot Zone’ (VIDEO)

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Exclusive
National Geographic/Amanda Matlovich

HAZMAT suit up for The Hot Zone, a thriller based on the bestseller by Robert Preston that tells the terrifying true story of the deadly Ebola virus reaching US soil in 1989.

It stars Emmy-winner Julianna Margulies of ER and The Good Wife as Lt. Col. Nancy Jaax, a married mother of two and dedicated infectious disease researcher at a government biohazard lab (a “hot zone”) near Washington, D.C.. It will air three consecutive nights on Nat Geo beginning Monday, May 27.

In our exclusive clip, Jaax has received a tissue sample she suspects contains a lethal virus. “It’s like nothing she’s ever seen before,” Margulies tells TV Insider, “And she wants to get into her lab and figure out what it is.”

That lab is rated a “biohazard level four,” and contains samples of the world’s deadliest diseases.  The precautions Jaax takes are nothing to, er, sneeze at. “When you’re in there and get a tear in your suit and you get infected, you can die,” Margulies says.

The Hot Zone, Series Premiere, Monday, May 27, 9/8c, National Geographic