Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: Criminal Minds Star Kirsten Vangsness on Why People Become Killers

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Killer Thriller: Criminal Minds Star Kirsten Vangsness on Why People Become Killers · Legally Brunette

0:13
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody.
0:14
Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here and this is Killer Thriller. Joining me
0:18
Speaker 2: today is the incredibly talented actress and writer Kirsten Vangsness,
0:23
Speaker 2: whom millions of fans know as FBI technical analyst Penelo
0:27
Speaker 2: be Garcia from Criminal Minds and now Criminal Minds Evolution.
0:32
Speaker 2: For more than twenty years, Garcia has been the heart
0:35
Speaker 2: of the BAU, helping audiences understand not just who commits
0:39
Speaker 2: horrific crimes, but why we are exploring the real life
0:43
Speaker 2: criminal psychology that inspires Criminal Minds, and why the series
0:47
Speaker 2: has remained one of television's most fascinating explorations of human behavior. Hi, Kirsten,
0:53
Speaker 2: Welcome to Killer Thriller.
0:55
Speaker 3: Hi, thanks for having me.
0:57
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
0:58
Speaker 2: We have a lot of things to cover today, So
1:03
Speaker 2: first we're going to talk about Criminal Minds. You know,
1:06
Speaker 2: maybe one of the most successful television shows to ever
1:10
Speaker 2: be a television show, and one of the things that
1:15
Speaker 2: Criminal Minds and now Criminal Minds Evolution has always done
1:20
Speaker 2: so well is ask not just who committed the crime,
1:24
Speaker 2: but why and why do you think audiences have connected
1:29
Speaker 2: with that approach for so many years?
1:32
Speaker 3: I think that all of us do. I mean, think
1:35
Speaker 3: about when you might have been in some sort of
1:40
Speaker 3: disagreement with someone you're super duper close to, whether it's
1:44
Speaker 3: a primary caregiver and you're an adult now, or whether
1:48
Speaker 3: you have a beloved or someone you have a crush on,
1:51
Speaker 3: some a deep friend and something happens. We've all been
1:55
Speaker 3: there where something happens and our defenses go up. We
1:58
Speaker 3: get super contracted and they either I mean, depending on
2:01
Speaker 3: how much therapy you've had or whatever, right a lot
2:03
Speaker 3: in my case, right me to you, me too. But
2:06
Speaker 3: you've heard people, I've heard myself. You do things and
2:09
Speaker 3: say things. You're like, that's not me. I don't do
2:12
Speaker 3: that at all. We segment off parts of ourselves and
2:15
Speaker 3: we go, oh, I would never, I would never, never, never, never,
2:18
Speaker 3: And people do, especially in the world now. I think
2:22
Speaker 3: we're getting better. But this idea that like, oh everybody acts,
2:26
Speaker 3: so everybody's so together, and oh yeah, when I make pasta,
2:31
Speaker 3: it's just like how it looks like the girl does
2:33
Speaker 3: it on Instagram and everything's clean, right yeah, when I
2:36
Speaker 3: spread my tofu, that's exact. No. So this idea, I
2:40
Speaker 3: think we all do, think behave in sometimes reprehensible ways.
2:48
Speaker 3: And the deal is is that behavior can be disgusting
2:52
Speaker 3: human beings. Everybody came into this earth and just wanted
2:57
Speaker 3: to take their next breath and where it it's all
3:00
Speaker 3: wonky and strange, is what some people decide they need
3:07
Speaker 3: to take their next breath? Or you know, the audacity,
3:11
Speaker 3: the temerity of people in the world right now, some
3:14
Speaker 3: of which are running the government to behave in ways
3:18
Speaker 3: that like, oh, I can just do this and like
3:20
Speaker 3: and they get away with it, and you're like, the
3:23
Speaker 3: temerity of that, and it makes you very curious and
3:27
Speaker 3: in an expanded, really hyperbolic in the way of criminal
3:31
Speaker 3: minds way, because oh my gosh, we all have to
3:33
Speaker 3: remember that there's not that many serial killers walking around
3:36
Speaker 3: at one time given moment. But in that hyperbolic way
3:39
Speaker 3: that criminal minds does it, you can both narrow it
3:42
Speaker 3: down to the things that happen in your life. And
3:47
Speaker 3: I know for a lot of feminine bet creatures, I
3:49
Speaker 3: hear a lot of this is my comfort show, This
3:51
Speaker 3: is my comfort show, And I think that I date, yeah,
3:54
Speaker 3: that idea of like everything, Oh my gosh, this is
3:58
Speaker 3: the worst thing could ever that we are encountering people
4:01
Speaker 3: on literally the worst day of their lives right, and
4:06
Speaker 3: there are going to be people, but both we both
4:09
Speaker 3: have an aspirational view of what the FBI can be,
4:13
Speaker 3: which I think is important imagination work that we should
4:15
Speaker 3: all be doing. So we have that. But then also
4:20
Speaker 3: there are people who care. There are people who are
4:23
Speaker 3: willing to put all of their viscera on the line
4:26
Speaker 3: to take care of other people. And that makes people
4:29
Speaker 3: feel better because there are so many people in the
4:32
Speaker 3: world that have had so many horrible, scared things happen
4:35
Speaker 3: where no one's been there for them. So be able
4:38
Speaker 3: to put your nervous system through that journey and have
4:41
Speaker 3: an end bit that's like, okay, it can be okay.
4:45
Speaker 3: I think it's really important. And then you add on
4:48
Speaker 3: top of that ice cream Sunday the fact that all
4:52
Speaker 3: of us in that main cast get on like a
4:54
Speaker 3: house on fire, and we're all passionate about making sure
5:00
Speaker 3: that all I think every single one of us have
5:03
Speaker 3: been in situations where like we were the co star
5:06
Speaker 3: or the two line, or that I really want to
5:07
Speaker 3: be an actor, but I don't have any credits place
5:10
Speaker 3: at one point in another. So it's really important for
5:13
Speaker 3: us for our guest cast to feel like you're part
5:17
Speaker 3: of this, Yes, and I think we're we're that way
5:21
Speaker 3: with the crew, and that's not like because we're lovely people,
5:23
Speaker 3: that's just that's the right way to behave at work. Yes,
5:27
Speaker 3: So we all really deeply care about each other. So
5:30
Speaker 3: you can feel that as you know, because as we're shooting,
5:34
Speaker 3: we really care about each other. We're not playing a
5:36
Speaker 3: game of you know, that person's the start. I mean,
5:39
Speaker 3: obviously Joe Mantenna is the start. Obviously Pageant Browoster's the start.
5:42
Speaker 3: But I'm saying that we don't do that, none of us.
5:45
Speaker 1: There's no hierarchy in that way.
5:47
Speaker 2: Like yep, I do think that's why you know, people
5:51
Speaker 2: might who viewers might not necessarily be able to pick
5:56
Speaker 2: that out right, but they can understand there's something that
5:59
Speaker 2: feels very authentic ticket and very kind of community base.
6:02
Speaker 1: And when you're dealing with a show.
6:03
Speaker 2: That's really trying to understand human behavior, you know, rather
6:08
Speaker 2: than just solving crimes, it's like it's it's kind of key.
6:13
Speaker 3: And so yeah, it's the transparency. You know, me and
6:16
Speaker 3: the girls, I remember this is pre this this iteration
6:20
Speaker 3: of criminal minds. I mean, we all sat in my
6:21
Speaker 3: hot tub and really, how much do you make, How
6:23
Speaker 3: much do you make? How much? Okay you need to make?
6:25
Speaker 3: Make like that kind of time of it is happening
6:29
Speaker 3: all over and our boss Eric Amesser, the way she
6:32
Speaker 3: runs the place, there's a transparency that's an authenticity and
6:35
Speaker 3: a taking responsibility for your behavior. Like it's not like
6:39
Speaker 3: it's always perfect, you know what I mean? You could
6:41
Speaker 3: look up all kinds of things in the news and
6:43
Speaker 3: things things that have happened on criminal minds, but like
6:46
Speaker 3: the degree of like, oh we did that, let's make
6:48
Speaker 3: it better is right evasive?
6:50
Speaker 1: Right?
6:51
Speaker 2: So what do you think you've You've spoken about being
6:54
Speaker 2: interested in understanding people rather than just reducing them to labels,
6:59
Speaker 2: which is very much how what I'm interested in also,
7:03
Speaker 2: and especially in doing this podcast where we're talking about
7:07
Speaker 2: some pretty grisly things, I'm really mainly interested in, like
7:12
Speaker 2: how do we how do we do these things as
7:16
Speaker 2: human beings? So like, what do you think that we
7:19
Speaker 2: gain by asking why instead of just stopping it what happened?
7:24
Speaker 1: Gosh?
7:25
Speaker 3: I think it all is why, because if you stop
7:29
Speaker 3: at what happened, then the person who's talking about what
7:34
Speaker 3: happened gets to be in their own reactivity, right they
7:36
Speaker 3: get to wring their hands and say how bad that
7:38
Speaker 3: person is. What I mean by that is that instead
7:42
Speaker 3: of hey, why did they do that? Or let's go
7:45
Speaker 3: a little deeper or whatever, it's like, no, let's talk
7:48
Speaker 3: about how terrible, No, let's go right, and that kind
7:52
Speaker 3: of thing. It hijacks your nervous system. It's intentional to
7:56
Speaker 3: get you off the topic. It's a classic, uh borderline
8:02
Speaker 3: narcissistic any of us who the parent or anybody like that,
8:05
Speaker 3: who did that, those kind of things, it's a classic jarvo. Right,
8:08
Speaker 3: It's classic. So when another person, even when they're talking
8:11
Speaker 3: about somebody that did something terrible, to kind of get
8:15
Speaker 3: into that, which I understand, I'm going to show that
8:17
Speaker 3: like that's its bread and butter, right is doing that.
8:20
Speaker 3: But but the fun part is why the fun part
8:25
Speaker 3: I'm saying fun but the but the but the part
8:28
Speaker 3: that you always have to remember is that that is
8:33
Speaker 3: any one of us, we're one arrownet away. You know,
8:38
Speaker 3: by the grace of God, all of us and the
8:41
Speaker 3: grace of Goddess all of us had wonky uh fissures,
8:47
Speaker 3: terrible moments that happened to us in our childhood. And
8:49
Speaker 3: some people that the the you know, the the prom
8:53
Speaker 3: queen didn't get a pony, and that hurts her maybe
8:56
Speaker 3: in it because of the way her nervous sysim is
8:59
Speaker 3: in the same way that somebody who's you know, parent
9:01
Speaker 3: through some water on their head and in front of
9:04
Speaker 3: some friends or whatever. Right, So like you don't know
9:06
Speaker 3: how those things form, and we're all just one blip away, yeah,
9:11
Speaker 3: from not being that person. So it's it's just something
9:18
Speaker 3: I think that we have to keep in mind. And
9:20
Speaker 3: and I think we live in a world where I
9:23
Speaker 3: don't want to live in that world. I feel like
9:24
Speaker 3: we are told to live in a world where like
9:26
Speaker 3: someone does something wrong, punish them, forget about it, it
9:29
Speaker 3: goes away. And that, right, that isn't true.
9:32
Speaker 2: Right, It's like calling someone evil Charles Manson evil, Well, okay,
9:38
Speaker 2: but that doesn't really like help us understand anything.
9:40
Speaker 1: It doesn't give us any perspective.
9:42
Speaker 3: Yes, And I do think that the part where you
9:45
Speaker 3: get to say evil, reprehensible, shameful, gross disgusting is behavior
9:52
Speaker 3: Like someone's behavior can be like that when you are
9:58
Speaker 3: I have the ability to reduce a whole human animal
10:04
Speaker 3: to that and ignore the whatever that chapter all.
10:09
Speaker 1: The all the monsters source or the monsters that.
10:11
Speaker 3: Created that monster, the monster that got off the hook
10:14
Speaker 3: for creating that. Yeah, and I used to think that
10:17
Speaker 3: about I think that about world leaders all the time.
10:19
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, their mom never hugged them.
10:22
Speaker 3: What does that do to your mind? And what do
10:24
Speaker 3: you now think about other people? Because that's the other
10:28
Speaker 3: part is that all those people are operating, I think,
10:30
Speaker 3: assuming that we're all wearing the same glasses that they are.
10:48
Speaker 2: It's so curious because in all of the you know,
10:50
Speaker 2: if we've covered Ted Bundy and all these kinds of
10:53
Speaker 2: serial killers, and there are certain people that have had
10:57
Speaker 2: the same upbringing, for example, and don't do the same things.
11:03
Speaker 2: You know, one becomes a serial killer and one goes
11:08
Speaker 2: to therapy, you know, or one becomes a therapist or
11:11
Speaker 2: you know, like there are many different ways that these
11:14
Speaker 2: things evolve. So it's it's really you know, So, what
11:18
Speaker 2: do you think, looking back on the whole show and
11:22
Speaker 2: all of it, what do you think that Criminal Minds
11:24
Speaker 2: has always been trying to say about human behavior.
11:28
Speaker 3: I think it's been trying to say. I think, well,
11:31
Speaker 3: I'm trying to put put on my eric a messer
11:33
Speaker 3: hat and try to think Erica, our showrunner, would say.
11:36
Speaker 3: I think that she would say, like, the heroes are
11:37
Speaker 3: always there, right, I think that that's what she would say.
11:41
Speaker 3: I always say that on our best day, and I
11:43
Speaker 3: think she would agree with this too. I think our
11:45
Speaker 3: best day are my episodes that I love. And you're
11:48
Speaker 3: talking to someone who is clinically diagnosed autistic. And I
11:53
Speaker 3: am unable to watch the very show I am on
11:57
Speaker 3: because my imagination does not underst stand it's not really
12:01
Speaker 3: happening in the moment I'm watching it. So I have read, Oh,
12:06
Speaker 3: I've written five episodes of the show, and you know
12:08
Speaker 3: you'll watch them again and again in terms of cuts,
12:11
Speaker 3: and I have to disassociate to do to do that.
12:15
Speaker 3: But I think that the show. And but I read
12:18
Speaker 3: all the episodes, we do table reads in them. I
12:21
Speaker 3: always say, like, you get to choose. I can either
12:23
Speaker 3: be in the show or watch the show. But I
12:26
Speaker 3: can't do both because I couldn't watch the show for
12:29
Speaker 3: recreational purposes. It wouldn't be the way I consume entertainment,
12:34
Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
12:34
Speaker 4: Wow?
12:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love watching my friends act and I
12:37
Speaker 3: do write. If aj Or directs an episode, I'm gonna
12:40
Speaker 3: be like, Okay, I'm gonna see here. I'm gonna watch it,
12:42
Speaker 3: but I can't watch one, you know, tip to tail,
12:45
Speaker 3: I can't.
12:46
Speaker 2: You can't, so you can watch it, but you just
12:49
Speaker 2: don't watch yourself, or you can't.
12:51
Speaker 3: Oh, I can't watch I can't watch any of violent
12:52
Speaker 3: stuff and violent anything hold up to violent. You know,
12:56
Speaker 3: we classically do episodes where it's like people are living
13:00
Speaker 3: their best lives. They're having like this fun moment, it's
13:03
Speaker 3: very relatable, and then here comes a guy to disembowel
13:07
Speaker 3: the mother who just got her favorite, you know what
13:10
Speaker 3: I mean. And like I am sitting there. I could
13:13
Speaker 3: have read that thing three times and I'm like, oh no,
13:17
Speaker 3: like and I think my job, that's really great because
13:21
Speaker 3: my imagination goes, oh, it's just Kirsten over here, Penelope
13:26
Speaker 3: Garcia is dealing with this, this, this, this, this, and
13:28
Speaker 3: it's happening and I'm in it and I'm there. I
13:33
Speaker 3: don't think anybody you would want to anybody who had
13:37
Speaker 3: that kind of job would want to be like, let
13:38
Speaker 3: me go home and watch it, you know what I mean,
13:40
Speaker 3: let me go home and yeah, this thing, I don't
13:42
Speaker 3: so that. But like, also I was back to I
13:45
Speaker 3: think that our show at its best is when we
13:48
Speaker 3: talk about monsters creating monsters.
13:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like hurt people, hurt people, Yeah, I know.
13:55
Speaker 3: It makes everybody all. I'm not saying people should be
13:58
Speaker 3: you know, let off the hook and not have to
14:02
Speaker 3: take responsibility for things that they do. I'm not saying
14:05
Speaker 3: we shouldn't protect more. I mean I'm as I am.
14:10
Speaker 3: I am like most of the world A have had,
14:16
Speaker 3: you know, sexual trauma, and people do things and whatever,
14:19
Speaker 3: and you want people to be held responsible and yes,
14:23
Speaker 3: those people to not do that to anybody else. Again.
14:27
Speaker 3: I just think that the way in which we incarcerate
14:31
Speaker 3: and punish it doesn't get to the end result. It
14:35
Speaker 3: sort of covers and it doesn't take care of very
14:39
Speaker 3: people who had the thing.
14:40
Speaker 2: Right, Like, you're not saying that these things are you know,
14:44
Speaker 2: excuses for behavior. They're just explanations if there is a
14:47
Speaker 2: reason for these things, and it doesn't.
14:49
Speaker 1: Make it right. It just explains like what's happening and
14:53
Speaker 1: how we got there?
14:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, and can we stop the button?
14:56
Speaker 2: You know.
14:56
Speaker 3: I have a one of the people who I have
15:00
Speaker 3: been lucky enough to meet on my adventures and criminal minds.
15:04
Speaker 4: She is.
15:06
Speaker 3: I can talk about this because they've adverted about it.
15:10
Speaker 3: She is who they named Emily after on our show,
15:13
Speaker 3: and she used to work for the FBI, and she
15:15
Speaker 3: created a thing where they were able to use an
15:18
Speaker 3: algorithm to be able to look at a teenager social
15:21
Speaker 3: media and be able to tell based on music they
15:25
Speaker 3: listened to, based on their social behaviors, if they were
15:29
Speaker 3: more or less likely to participate in school shooting. And
15:32
Speaker 3: they've been able to stop children. They've gotten to these
15:37
Speaker 3: kids and gone like hey, hey, and been able to
15:40
Speaker 3: find evidence of that they were going to do that
15:43
Speaker 3: and be able to stop it before it happens. So
15:46
Speaker 3: now we've got a kid who hasn't done anything wrong
15:49
Speaker 3: aside from maybe some minor quote unquote like gathering munitions
15:54
Speaker 3: or whatever, like not gone and killed another human being yet,
15:58
Speaker 3: and you're able to take them and get them what
16:01
Speaker 3: they need so that they don't do more.
16:03
Speaker 2: That is extraordinary. That is so amazing.
16:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the kind of thing where I feel like,
16:12
Speaker 3: why it's really good to know why people do things,
16:14
Speaker 3: because if you can catch if you can catch the
16:17
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, this kid's doing this, this, this, and
16:20
Speaker 3: there's someone there, I mean, that's really the key is
16:22
Speaker 3: that a lot of times, these kids, a lot of
16:25
Speaker 3: times people, there's no one there. When a lot of
16:29
Speaker 3: these things happened to any of us, there was either
16:31
Speaker 3: no one there or there were people protecting the person
16:35
Speaker 3: because their brains, because of what happened to them, they
16:38
Speaker 3: could handle it happening. So it's all these people trying
16:43
Speaker 3: to cover things up, thinking, oh, if we lift this
16:46
Speaker 3: rock and all the bugs come out, it's just going
16:49
Speaker 3: to be too overwhelming, you know, And that's never true.
16:53
Speaker 3: There's there's a lot of rocks, and there's a lot
16:55
Speaker 3: of bugs under the rocks, and they're going we need
16:58
Speaker 3: to get the bugs right, yes, right.
17:02
Speaker 2: In several interviews, you've described Garcia as somebody who always
17:07
Speaker 2: tries to hold on to her humanity. So why do
17:10
Speaker 2: you think audiences respond so strongly to that balance of
17:14
Speaker 2: compassion and optimism.
17:17
Speaker 3: I it comes. It's one of the things about Garcia
17:21
Speaker 3: because I came in with just like two lines. I
17:24
Speaker 3: wasn't supposed to be in more than one episode, and
17:26
Speaker 3: then it just kind of I kind of stayed. I
17:28
Speaker 3: love that that I got to be one of the
17:33
Speaker 3: architects of her as she went along. I also didn't
17:36
Speaker 3: know I was going to keep the job, so I
17:37
Speaker 3: kept leaving things in my fake office. I leave my
17:40
Speaker 3: grandmother's candy dish, and I thought, well, if they fire me,
17:42
Speaker 3: I'll have to come back and get it. And then
17:43
Speaker 3: I could walk by the art department be like those
17:45
Speaker 3: smart intern Yeah. So I sort of created her kind
17:49
Speaker 3: of based on like an aspirational version of myself. I
17:53
Speaker 3: can't type, I don't understand, you know, I a mathematics
18:00
Speaker 3: like that, I need a lot things that are an
18:01
Speaker 3: exact science like I'm a good comp I'm a terrible
18:04
Speaker 3: baker like that. Science things are really hard for me
18:07
Speaker 3: to to latch onto. And I so I created this
18:11
Speaker 3: sort of aspirational person. But there are parts of her
18:15
Speaker 3: that I think are I believe in and I think
18:19
Speaker 3: are important. And so the ability to understand that monsters
18:26
Speaker 3: are created by monsters, and the ability to put yourself
18:30
Speaker 3: in someone else's shoes and and and not get over
18:36
Speaker 3: that blip, but not get over the blip of like
18:39
Speaker 3: not get jaded.
18:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very hopeful. It's a hopeful.
18:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 3: And I know people, I mean some people, and I
18:48
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I I understand that Garcia,
18:50
Speaker 3: I understand that me. There are people that aren't for everybody,
18:53
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And I that's a lesson.
18:57
Speaker 3: I think we all learn as like some people aren't
18:59
Speaker 3: gonna like your flavor ice cream, and that's okay, and
19:03
Speaker 3: so I'm but I and I am like a strong spice.
19:07
Speaker 3: So you can't put Garcia in a lot of the show,
19:10
Speaker 3: and people kind of don't believe that, Like, no, no
19:12
Speaker 3: one can be that. That part comes so easy for
19:15
Speaker 3: me because of the fact that I think that the
19:19
Speaker 3: only way you can truly hunker down and take a
19:23
Speaker 3: bite out of true pain and despair and awfulness is
19:28
Speaker 3: if the best fuel is joy. And I'm not talking
19:33
Speaker 3: about faky pos whatever. I'm talking about pure and adulterated
19:37
Speaker 3: pleasure and like that pleasure seeker. So I am like
19:41
Speaker 3: that she gets her pleasure from other things than me.
19:44
Speaker 3: She can extract pleasure easier from different things than I can,
19:49
Speaker 3: and vice versa. But I think that we all want
19:54
Speaker 3: that part of ourselves. But that part does come really
19:56
Speaker 3: easy for me. I we're neighbors, me and Garcia, not
20:00
Speaker 3: the same person, but we're definitely like I I don't
20:05
Speaker 3: even know if we'd be friends, But because I don't know,
20:09
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't know if we have the same
20:11
Speaker 3: things in common. Sometimes I do, I don't know, But
20:14
Speaker 3: like I I'm happy that she helps people because I
20:19
Speaker 3: want people to feel the thing that I want when
20:23
Speaker 3: I'm scared, you know, which somebody cares and somebody can
20:29
Speaker 3: do something. You want someone to be able to get
20:32
Speaker 3: how badly do we all want someone to like get
20:35
Speaker 3: in there and like fix it, you know what I mean,
20:37
Speaker 3: and and stop it, and that someone can do that,
20:41
Speaker 3: and that if I can use my imagination for that
20:43
Speaker 3: and like I'm just playing pretend on a TV show,
20:46
Speaker 3: I'm not caring cancer, there are people out there that
20:49
Speaker 3: are really doing that stuff. And so the more we
20:51
Speaker 3: can use our imagination to imaginate that stuff. There are
20:55
Speaker 3: people out there, you know what I mean. There are
20:57
Speaker 3: doctors that are making like I know, got doctors maybe
21:00
Speaker 3: like they've tricked tumors in a kid's brain to think
21:03
Speaker 3: it's polio and then given a kid the polio vaccine
21:06
Speaker 3: and it's made the tumor shrink. There's someone who's you know,
21:10
Speaker 3: need like, so there's there's reason, there's things, and we're
21:16
Speaker 3: predisposed to think we're being chased by a tiger, which
21:18
Speaker 3: is why everyone loves Criminal Minds. But the truth is,
21:21
Speaker 3: very rarely are we actually we have a tiger here,
21:23
Speaker 3: you have one here, but we're very rarely being chased
21:27
Speaker 3: by a tiger.
21:27
Speaker 1: And I think these are inanimate.
21:28
Speaker 3: Opricia is the reminder to all of us that, like,
21:31
Speaker 3: we have to choose to find the good, right, It's
21:36
Speaker 3: a really joyful practice.
21:38
Speaker 2: I love that because then that also offers up that
21:41
Speaker 2: it's kind of a choice. We have a choice of
21:44
Speaker 2: how we want to go through the world, and we
21:47
Speaker 2: can It can be optimistic and with compassion, or it
21:52
Speaker 2: can be you know.
21:53
Speaker 3: I think very few people have the privilege of being
21:56
Speaker 3: in despair. There are people in so much despair right
21:59
Speaker 3: now that they don't feel like they have the privilege
22:00
Speaker 3: of being indiscrible like so I find it very strange too,
22:06
Speaker 3: Like that would be very strange for me, especially even Garcia,
22:09
Speaker 3: Like she's having to deal with all this stuff that
22:11
Speaker 3: these people are going through. Why would she be upset?
22:13
Speaker 2: Right, It's like a constant barometer.
22:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, like I'm okay, I'm okay.
22:32
Speaker 2: So which Over the years, Criminal Minds has a splore
22:35
Speaker 2: to everything from serial offenders to family violence and coercion,
22:39
Speaker 2: and which or what kinds of stories have stayed with
22:44
Speaker 2: you the longest.
22:46
Speaker 3: I'm a real again because I have a hard time
22:49
Speaker 3: watching the show. So the ones that stay with me
22:52
Speaker 3: the longest let me think I really enjoy the magical
22:59
Speaker 3: realism as we do. Which I don't know if everybody
23:02
Speaker 3: else loves those, but like a lot of times, Breen Frasier,
23:06
Speaker 3: who's one of our other executive producers, writes those I
23:08
Speaker 3: love an Erica one. I love all of our writers
23:11
Speaker 3: are so good, but like I love a weird episode,
23:14
Speaker 3: I tend to default to those, but I always, and
23:18
Speaker 3: this is really super cheesy, I usually love the episode
23:22
Speaker 3: we're on, you know, because that's again and I don't
23:25
Speaker 3: know if that's my autism talking or whatever, but I'm
23:28
Speaker 3: so focused.
23:29
Speaker 1: That's also very zen.
23:33
Speaker 3: This is happening, so like, right after we get on this,
23:35
Speaker 3: I'm going to go to work and I love my job,
23:38
Speaker 3: and I go to work and I'm be like, Okay,
23:41
Speaker 3: this is the most important thing we've ever done. And
23:45
Speaker 3: it does genuinely feel like that to me, And I
23:48
Speaker 3: know that probably makes me like, but it's true. Of course,
23:52
Speaker 3: the ones I've written I really care about, like yeah,
23:55
Speaker 3: Nelson Sparrow. I co wrote all of the episodes I wrote.
23:58
Speaker 3: I co wrote with Erica Messer. I haven't co written
24:01
Speaker 3: in the new iteration of it because for my favorite
24:06
Speaker 3: reason in the world, which is we have a very
24:10
Speaker 3: much smaller writers from than we used to have because
24:12
Speaker 3: of the breakdown of business, which I'm looking forward to
24:17
Speaker 3: it growing back. But Erica chose to hire writers that
24:23
Speaker 3: had been writers assistance and had come up from Criminal Minds.
24:28
Speaker 3: They know this show like nobody's business. So if I
24:32
Speaker 3: were to co write an episode, I would be taking
24:35
Speaker 3: work away from some truly incredible writers and the episode.
24:39
Speaker 3: There's no way that my episode would be as good
24:43
Speaker 3: and Erica has, which is the great thing about the show.
24:45
Speaker 3: And I don't understand it. Aerica has so many ideas still,
24:50
Speaker 3: like we're about to end our twentieth season, that first
24:53
Speaker 3: episode of season twenty will be our three hundred and
24:55
Speaker 3: sixty fifth episode, and she still has like a so
25:00
Speaker 3: I don't ever when she comes and says like, here's
25:03
Speaker 3: I can't think of anything, I'll be like, oh, let
25:04
Speaker 3: me write one with you. But like I helped her
25:07
Speaker 3: write Nelson Sparrow. I co wrote Nelson, which is the
25:09
Speaker 3: episode where we find out that spoiler alert from a
25:12
Speaker 3: long time ago. Gideon dies I co wrote there was
25:15
Speaker 3: an arc that happened with Matthew Greg Goobluf's character Spencer
25:20
Speaker 3: and I start. I wrote the episode that started that
25:23
Speaker 3: arc where he gets arrested in Mexico. I wrote Beautiful Disaster.
25:30
Speaker 3: That's the last episode that Shamar Moore was in of
25:34
Speaker 3: the show. All of those were meaningful because they were
25:37
Speaker 3: character based, you know, from a singular character. And then
25:41
Speaker 3: I wrote We wrote Full Tilt Boogie, which was strangely
25:45
Speaker 3: about something that if you watch it, we were writing
25:48
Speaker 3: it going like we're going to get in trouble like
25:50
Speaker 3: people because we were doing research about like people that
25:53
Speaker 3: were getting like like off in Florida, and we're talking
25:57
Speaker 3: about these and it was like a little and it
26:00
Speaker 3: was that one was important to me because as the
26:02
Speaker 3: daughter of a addict, I got to write things and
26:07
Speaker 3: do things and talk about things in a way that
26:10
Speaker 3: you know, was important to me. And then I wrote
26:14
Speaker 3: the series finale with her uh and and that was
26:18
Speaker 3: really great. So I like a like relational.
26:21
Speaker 2: Ones, Yes, yes, did you did? Did writing change the
26:24
Speaker 2: way you thought about criminal behavior?
26:29
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I remember, like, we sometimes have
26:33
Speaker 3: an FBI analyst BAU, like a person who used to
26:37
Speaker 3: work them that would consult with us, and a lot
26:41
Speaker 3: of times I would not battle with him, but he'd
26:45
Speaker 3: be like, well, that's not how it is. That's how
26:48
Speaker 3: it is, right. I was like, I understand, but we're
26:53
Speaker 3: not doing it like we're playing pretend. And I decided
26:57
Speaker 3: in my town that this is gonna have you so
27:00
Speaker 3: like we which I understand. Some people are purests and
27:04
Speaker 3: you want it to be exactly how it would be,
27:07
Speaker 3: and I like the fantastical.
27:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you literally just answered the question that
27:11
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, which was what are the
27:13
Speaker 2: challenges that come with exploring real world themes through fiction?
27:17
Speaker 1: And you just answered it.
27:19
Speaker 3: But oftentimes you end up writing fiction and then it happens.
27:23
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that's it for today, but don't miss part
27:26
Speaker 2: two of my conversation with Kirsten Vang's Ness.
27:29
Speaker 1: We'll leave the world of the Bau
27:31
Speaker 2: Behind and dive into another unforgettable role as Kirsten takes
27:36
Speaker 2: us inside the shocking true story behind Amish stud the
27:41
Speaker 2: Eli Weaver story, a case involving deception, obsession, and a
27:45
Speaker 2: murder that shattered one of America's most private communities.