PW: So what was your response when asked to play Simon?
Matthew: The minute I got the phone call, it was like “holy heck yes!” Actors talk about dreaming of playing Othello, but for me, it’s Simon. It’s the biggest deal to me – even the older records from the ’50s, they have my heart and to be a part of that legend is mind blowing.

PW: My favorite song of theirs is “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” What’s yours?
Matthew: Oh, yeah – that’s a no brainer. But if you really want to get on the fringe, there was a record called “Chipmunk Punk” in the early ’80s and that’s kind of what took the show into the more modern version that we know – they sing Blondie and the old punk songs.

PW: If you could tackle one song as Simon, what would it be?
Matthew: It’d be cool to chipmunk-ize “The Virgin Suicides” soundtrack. All this ethereal French music, I think that would be unique to listen to.

PW: Can you actually sing?
Matthew: On my website I have a series of 1980s TV theme songs that I’ve resung and arguably, I’ve probably got the worst voice on the planet. Maybe the second. You check it out, I think it’s pretty bad. I’ve got “Golden Girls” and “Cheers.” I’m not the best singer.

Full interview here

Thanks to Steph for sending us an email about this.

Is it true that you got the role of Reid even though you really weren’t interested in being an actor or in doing TV?
“Yeah, I really sort of fell into it. I’m so lucky. I studied directing. And I had a directing agent who, long story short, said, ‘Hey, why don’t you go in a try out for this TV show pilot. There’s a character on there that’s sort of interesting.’ And I went in and got it. It was sort of a miracle, I guess, because I didn’t have any major interest in acting. But I since have fallen madly in love with it. It’s been great.”

That’s a great story. But actors who have worked much harder for their breakthrough roles, as well as those who are still waiting for their big breaks, must resent how easily it happened for you.
“Yeah, I’ve experienced that a little bit. But I’m of the belief that, if you love acting, then you can act anywhere. You can do local plays. You can do something. It’s maybe only people who are more interested in getting notoriety that really resent me. And if they’re only in it for their own fame and ego, then I don’t really care if they’re annoyed. I just want to entertain people and I’m lucky to get to do that on a big scale. But if I weren’t on the show, I would still be doing everything in my power to entertain people, even if it were on a much smaller platform, even if it were only for my mother.”

So with which character do you identify more: Spencer Reid or Simon the Chipmunk?
“It’s funny. I do see similarities between all characters I play. But Reid definitely is very different from me. I feel closer to Simon in many ways, to be honest, than I do to Reid, although I look more like Reid, of course. But it does feel like I put a costume on when I play him. When I look in the mirror, I realize I’ve become an entirely different person all of a sudden. It’s a strange feeling, but I’ve gotten used to it.”

Do you think, as an actor and a creative artist, that you have enough insight into the human condition that you could be a profiler?
“Well, I think I could fake it for a while. There are about 11 real profilers in the world. I’ve met six or seven of them. And after doing 110 episodes of the show, inevitably you find that you’ve learned quite a bit more than you ever thought you’d know about profiling. So I think I would be able to sort of get by. I think I could fake it for longer than anyone would want me to. But I think I prefer just to pretend.”

Full article here

Last week Matthew Gray Gubler directed a very creepy episode of “Criminal Minds” entitled “Mosley Lane,” and this week the star of the hit CBS procedural drama turns 30. Thus, we here at Hollywood Crush, who honored the crime-fighting babe as 2009’s Hump Day Hottie of the Year (press play below to relive his original HDH video), extend the warmest birthday wishes to the man who makes grandpa sweaters look so good.

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What’s one way to cope with directing withdrawal? Chop off your hair.

That’s what Matthew Gray Gubler did.

“When it ended, I was so distraught, like, ‘Oh no! What do I do?’ … I was so bored. I just flipped out and cut my damn hair! I did it with, like, a hunting knife. It was bad,” the Criminal Minds star tells TVGuide.com. “I looked like a Super Mario Bros. Goomba. It’s arguably the ugliest haircut on the planet.”

Unfortunately, no one will get to see the result of his raw barber skills as his ‘do was “shaped up” at work. But fans will get to see Gubler’s other skills — and the realization of his lifelong dream — Wednesday: his directorial debut on the hit series (9/8c, CBS). “I hate to take credit, but it turned out to be something I’m very proud of,” he says. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, I would hope to God it’s directing because I know that I’ve spent pretty much the last 28 years of my life preparing for that!”

Though he’s best known for playing Dr. Spencer Reid on the crime serial, Gubler, who turns 30 on March 9, aspired to be a filmmaker and boasts a degree in film directing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Following graduation, he “accidentally got sideswiped” into acting after a role in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou by Wes Anderson, for whom he was interning at the time. Then came Minds in 2005, followed by “tons of flak” from friends for having chosen acting over filmmaking.

“I feel like I finally got my last laugh. Those five years have trained me so well — being able to communicate with and understand actors, which I really didn’t learn in school. I wasn’t nervous directing [my co-stars] since we’re like family now,” Gubler says. “I’ve always really felt bizarrely — not out of place — but confused that I’m on a hit show, getting a lot of work as an actor and having a great time, but it never made sense to me because I’ve always felt like my true calling was being a filmmaker. I’ve realized now that it was all just leading up to this moment.”

A former child magician and a sketch artist, Gubler — who has directed music videos and makes a series of online satirical videos about his life — says he has always loved entertaining. His creative pursuits have been on the show before — he’s done magic in episodes, and his own sketch of Nathan Harris (Anton Yelchin) was used in Season 2’s “Sex, Birth and Death” (after, on Mandy Patinkin’s suggestion, he ripped up the prop department’s “horribly accurate, perfect tracing of Anton’s face,” he laughs). He made his directing ambitions known, but it wasn’t until the end of Season 4 that Gubler approached executive producer/showrunner Ed Bernero about finally stepping behind the camera. “Ed goes, ‘You’re ready. All you had to do was ask,’” Gubler says. “He’s been very encouraging of my art and all the things I’ve made.”

Titled “Mosley Lane,” Gubler’s episode finds the BAU team trailing a child abductor — “a modern-day Hansel and Gretel dark fairy tale,” he calls it. A fan of the German expressionist film movement, during which films featured moody perspectives from the victims, Gubler employed the same tactic, using a young girl to give viewers a childlike look into “this eerily magical environment.” He took a more straightforward approach, however, when showcasing the unsubs, whom he classifies as “entirely non-sympathetic.”

“What appealed to me as a director is that these people are bad. When we look at them, we know immediately,” he says. “Bad guys being bad and good guys being good is what drama at its core is. It lets the creepiness be creepy. There’s not a drop of blood [in the episode] but it will creep you out. Some of it is in a crematorium. I found a three-story Victorian mansion that looks like it’s straight out of a Charles Addams cartoon. … I was amazed at the amount of creative freedom TV directors get if they want it — stuff that I didn’t know you get to do, but you can if you want to, and I wanted to. The most fun was picking out the details, picking out the syringe, the purse the woman has.”

Gubler was equally hands-on in securing the guest stars — Brooke Smith, Bud Cort, Beth Grant, Ann Cusack, Toby Huss and a group of what he calls “the most talented kid actors today.”

Forest Whitaker to star in Criminal Minds spin-off

There’s an entirely new group of faces on the set lately. The series is currently shooting the backdoor pilot for a spin-off to be headlined by Forest Whitaker, which has “an amazing element of dark grunge,” Gubler says. “It’s like ‘Criminal Minds: Lower East Village.’”

As for the mothership, Gubler, whose screen time has been limited this season after he destroyed his knee dancing last spring (he can’t do anything but walk until October), senses another season-finale cliffhanger and maybe — hopefully — another stint in the director’s chair.

“It’s a scheduling thing … but I would love that. It was the greatest,” he says. “If given the choice, I would direct every episode of the show for free.”

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Ever wondered why Dr. Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) had to wield a cane throughout this season on Criminal Minds? Apparently, Gubler injured his knee pretty bad while promoting (500) Days of Summer, where he played part of main protagonist Tom’s posse. For Criminal Minds fans who are worried that their young genius would sport a lifelong limp, Gubler tells USA Weekend that the injury is now a thing of the past.

“I’ve actually started to feel like a regular person again,” he says. “I forget which knee I even hurt at times, which is pretty amazing considering it was about a seven-month adventure. I really did a good job.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that the knee injury was something to laugh at. Not only did he have to undergo three surgeries, if anything, he says it was a “bad, bad” one. It even got to a point when his doctors were already suggesting experimental surgeries in Norway.

“I just got a little too overzealous on the dance floor and managed to pretty much do something that most knee surgeons have never even thought possible or seen in their lives. But they screwed me back together,” he explains, “hoping it would work and thinking it wouldn’t, and luckily my body completely took back everything.”

Can he discard the cane any day now? Absolutely.

“I have a limp now and I’ve been walking with a cane for a while, but it’s going away. I won’t be permanently affected by this, which is pretty odd. It’s really a miracle. They were like, “This is one of the worst injuries we’ve ever seen.” They were saying it was pretty legendary. It’s going to go down in a textbook somewhere for sure.”

As for how the Criminal Minds people reacted to his “legendary” injury, the 29-year-old reveals that they didn’t even believe him initially.

“I think to the day that people at Criminal Minds have honestly no understanding of what kind of injury it was… I thought I was going to be out for four episodes on crutches, and it ended up being like 12. It was a pretty crazy thing.”

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Criminal Minds fans may have noticed Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Dr. Spencer Reid, has been using a cane for most of this season. That isn’t a plot point, notes USA Weekend’s Brian Truitt.

Gubler hurt his knee some seven months ago while being “a little too overzealous” on the dance floor and has been recovering ever since. Gubler tells Truitt that it was such a “unique” and “legendary” injury – in which his knee was basically “dismantled” – that he figures it will “go down in a textbook somewhere for sure.”

Although Gubler says he’s “on very strict instructions not to do anything (other than walk) until October of 2010,” he will eventually be able to walk without a cane and even without a limp. “It’s really a miracle.”

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…But what he really wants to do is direct.

Matthew Gray Gubler (aka Dr. Spencer Reid) becomes the first costar to step behind the camera with the March 3 episode, one of three originals scheduled for sweeps. In Gubler’s big episode, the BAU tracks a family of killers who owns a crematorium. “I finally got the gumption [last season] to ask, ‘What do I have to do to prove that I’m ready to direct?’” says Gubler, who’s helmed short films and videos and shadowed exec producer Ed Bernero on a pilot. “My main concern will be creating suspense,” he says. As for his fellow actors, “I’d like them to let something new out.” If they don’t? Jokes Gubler, “I’m gonna fire a few and get rid of the deadweight.” But before he does, check out the February 3 installment, which guest stars Sex and the City’s David Eigenberg, and the February 10 episode, in which a serial killer terrorizes a small town. “It builds to a spectacular ending,” says exec producer Simon Mirren.

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1. “Criminal Minds” actor Matthew Gray Gubler

The “Criminal Minds” star returned as Simon in “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” where he cracked the top three at the box office. Since we have a soft spot for guys who play nerds (Dr. Reid and Simon certainly qualify), which is why he made the top HDH for 2009. Let’s not forget he also had us swooning in “(500) Days of Summer.” “Criminal Minds” is sure to get juicier as the season continues so we wouldn’t want to miss a minute of it. And, he seemed pretty excited to come out on top. He simply told Crush of the honor: “Yesssssssssssssssssssssss!”

[Source]

It’s no surprise, I mean, check out his bubble beard look of 2009

WIN IT! Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel Gift Bag
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL Movie Photos
Interview with the Chipmunks
New Images For Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

“Criminal Minds” turns 100 this week and, well, there’s a lot going on. Someone’s getting off’ed. Actually, I’m hearing two someones.

It will be very emotional, definitely tissue-worthy and as creator Ed Bernero — who also directed the landmark episode — tells me, there will be a pay off for loyal fans who’ve watched the show since day one.

“We raised a question in the pilot that will be come back around and be answered,” Bernero explained.

The topic at hand: Can you spend your time hunting monsters and not become a monster?

Sounds as though we’ll be finding out shortly.

Full article here