Criminal Minds Round Table Chat with Kirsten Vangsness and Rick Dunkle

Aka Guess Who’s Learning to Box?










CMRT had a chat today with Criminal Minds’ own Penelope Garcia, Kirsten Vangsness, and Exit Wounds writer Rick Dunkle. Both were very generous with their time and energy and it was a great pleasure to have them stop by for a true Round Table discussion regarding this past Wednesday’s episode and about CM itself.

We spoke to Rick about what it was like to shoot the Alaska scenes so far from the studio. Rick related how that terrific moment at the end between Garcia and Morgan wasn’t working at first. He, Kirsten, Shemar, Charles S Carroll (the director of the episode) and Chris Mundy all sat down at lunch and discussed it. That scene took a total collaborative effort to make it work.

We also told him how much we loved the awesome scene with our ladies. Kirsten told us how much fun that was to shoot and to her, AJ and Paget it wasn’t really like acting at all. There is a genuine closeness there and it comes across on screen, especially in that scene. Kirsten said Paget’s heels were a problem that evening, that there was actually only tissue paper in those bags, and, when asked what she thought Garcia had bought Kevin, she replied “Condoms”.

We had the opportunity to discuss the Season 5 Finale that airs in a couple of weeks. The only thing we were told was that it is “Heartbreaking”. However, we found out something interesting about how Tim Curry came to be cast in the role of our unsub. Tim Curry approached Kirsten Vangsness about the show. Kirsten said, “and he came up to me at the gym- TOTALLY freaked me out said in HIS VOICE ‘I worship at your throne’ and said he wanted to be on the show and when Tim Curry says he wants to be on your show... you tell them.” What a great story!!

But the most shocking thing heard in today’s chat revolved around what Kirsten is doing during her hiatus. Would you believe she is learning to box? How awesome is that? Maybe she’s preparing Garcia to deal with unsubs in the real world instead of in cyberspace.

And then there was the discussion about CM: The Musical!! Fun round table discussion today!! We even had an “honorary knight” today- CMRT invited one of its most loyal supporters, CheetoBreath, to join our chat. We hope to invite more special guests in the future so you too might be able to join us one day.

We’d like to give a big CMRT thank you to our special guests today! Kirsten and Rick were both so delightful and spent well over an hour of their personal time with us. We at CMRT can’t tell them enough how much we appreciate them coming for a visit today and welcome them back anytime.