Mandy Patinkin Calls ‘Criminal Minds’ Role His ‘Biggest Mistake’
Criminal Minds, a CBS police procedural drama, recently wrapped its seventh season, and was renewed back in March for an eighth. Though Mandy Patinkin played one of the lead roles on the show when it debuted in 2005, he left after two seasons for then-unspecified reasons. He recently revealed why he departed the show, and called his role one of the biggest professional mistakes he has ever made in an interview with New York Magazine.
Patinkin’s regret over his Criminal Minds role primarily revolves around his feeling that the show is far too violent. To him, she show’s content was so brutal that he even wishes he had never taken on the role in the first place.
“The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women (in storylines) every night, every day, week after week, year after year… It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn’t think I would get to work in television again.”
Luckily for Patinkin, he’s found the antidote, reports Yahoo!News: his lead role on Showtime’s Homeland.
“This [violence] isn’t what you need to be dreaming about,” said Patinkin. “A show like Homeland is the antidote. It asks why there’s a need for violence in the first place.”
Homeland season 2 will debut on Showtime on September 30th.
