Matthew Gray Gubler Of ‘Criminal Minds’ Reveals The Source Of His Dark Fascinations
Matthew Gray Gubler of Criminal Minds is well known to his fans as a complex, intelligent, and creative individual with a lot of widely varied interests. Matthew’s mind is fascinated by contrasts and contradictions and his persona reflects that.
Matthew Gray Gubler is not the least bit afraid of being the odd one, and he doesn’t mind being described as quirky. Gubler enjoys a good joke, even if it is on him. Yet, at the same time, Matthew has a powerful dark side brewing just below the surface.
The Criminal Minds veteran is whimsical yet spooky, cute and cuddly yet hauntingly poignant. Gubler loves frightening horror movies, classic cartoons, foggy evenings, wind storms, and monkeys with really big eyes according to E News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJpbD-xsLsw
Matthew Gray Gubler has a zany offbeat sense of humor, a flair for magic, and a great sense of timing that make him a perfect live entertainer. Gubler is an amazing stand up comic, always ready to improvise on the spur of the moment. At the same time, as a dramatic actor, Matthew can rip a girl’s heart out and hand it to her. He’s that good. Gubler really makes the audience feel his character’s pain.
Criminal Minds sometimes shows the audience at least a fraction of what Matthew Gray Gubler is capable of as an actor, but his movies show even more. When Gubler sheds a single tear, the whole audience weeps, because they feel Matthew so deeply.
Matthew Gray Gubler told the A.V. Club he likes to be scared. It is why Gubler likes horror movies and Halloween. The feeling actually keys back to the warm and secure memories of a happy childhood.
“I’ve always loved being scared, for whatever reason. I think it’s because as a kid I was very easily scared, and I slept on my parents’ floor—in front of their door—basically until I was, like, 12. [Laughs.] But I have this very warm association with being scared. It reminds me of being a child and using my mind for fun.”
Criminal Minds no doubt draws on Matthew Gray Gubler’s love of all things creepy. Most of the time, the shows have a certain horror element though not necessarily the supernatural type that fascinates true horror fans like Gubler.
Matthew Gray Gubler told the A.V. Club he thinks that kids horror by Disney is the real origin of both the dark and comic aspects of his complex persona. There is one classic that Gubler says sums up his personal preference in entertainment.
“To me, “The Skeleton Dance” kind of sums up… and is sort of the thesis for it all, because it’s whimsical, it’s very lighthearted, it’s beautifully handmade in the way that cartoons of the 1920s were, but there’s also some kind of spooky moments…I remember being kind of frightened of that as a kid, and I’m still frightened of that today! [Laughs.] But it sums up everything I feel about what I like to see in my entertainment.”
Matthew Gray Gubler says his love of directing was spawned from the 1983 Disney Movie, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
“I was lucky enough to be a kid around the time a few of these Disney movies came out that had just an immense impact on everything I make today. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this period in Disney’s history, but they kind of tried to target the early teenage audience. They were trying to make their movies a little more scary, and what came out of that was Something Wicked This Way Comes, Watcher In The Woods, and I think The Black Cauldron might fall under that canon.”
Matthew Gray Gubler uses the feeling and ideas from such films as an inspiration whenever he directs. There was such an art to Disney’s experiments with horror. When one thinks of it that way, it makes perfect sense. That is exactly where Gubler is going with his art. Further, it seems to have molded his very unique persona.
The Criminal Minds star is quick to indicate that, even though the horror movement within Disney was not a complete success, he feels it deserves another go. Matthew Gray Gubler seeks to emulate that feeling within his work.
“I think it actually kind of failed for Disney, and people were horrified, because what they created were some of the scariest films you’ve ever seen, but what’s amazing to me about it is that these movies are rated PG!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMZ_WodQtYY
Matthew Gray Gubler, star and frequent director of Criminal Minds, got his initial inspiration from the Disney movie Something Wicked This Way Comes.
“I love acting, but directing has sort of been my first love since I was a kid, and it’s because of this movie [Something Wicked This Way Comes.] It’s so much more impressive to me to create a scary film that plays in the viewer’s mind and is rated PG than it is to create an R-rated slasher film. I feel like it takes incredible nuance and an incredible ability to use the power of suggestion.”
Matthew Gray Gubler, whether directing Criminal Minds or working on one of his incredibly artistic films, uses the basic formula from Something Wicked This Way Comes, to create the desired impact.
Something Wicked This Way Comes, seems to have made an incredibly powerful impact on young Gubler, who was only three when the movie came out in 1983 and saw the movie for the first time at age six.
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Matthew Gray Gubler was at a very impressionable age when he saw the film, but what a wonderful and unexpected gift this movie gave an impressionable young mind. Now, Matthew has done so much with the concept.
“This movie sets up what I try to do as a director in every episode of Criminal Minds I’ve directed or any sort of thing I’ve made, which is to imply the fear. And it’s so effective. It’s so special. The movie and the book, of course, touch on tones that really resonate with me, like the love of the father and of one kid wanting to grow up faster than the other.”
Wow, Matthew Gray Gubler of Criminal Minds makes a strong case for letting little kids watch horror, provided parents don’t mind having those children sleep on their bedroom floor till they are 12. Still, Gubler has certainly made those late night awakenings well worth it.
[Featured Image by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]
