‘Criminal Minds’ Spencer Reid: Inside The Mind Of Actor Matthew Gray Gubler

Dr. Spencer Reid is one of the most loved characters on Criminal Minds, but what is Matthew Gray Gubler really like? Does he relate to the genius he plays with an IQ of 187? Did the creators of Criminal Minds write the character of Dr. Spencer Reid and then find that Matthew Gray Gubler was the perfect fit, or did he mold his character into something else?

Zimbio reports that when Matthew Gray Gubler originally came to audition for the role of Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds that they were originally looking for someone different, perhaps less quirky. Gubler recalled that they would have actually preferred someone who was more like Data from Star Trek.

“I think I was too gregarious. Maybe they were worried I would bring too much weirdness.”

In fact, Matthew Gray Gubler found himself rejected more than once for Criminal Minds‘ Dr. Spencer Reid. But despite the fact that they thought he was “so wrong” for the role, and perhaps because they also thought he was still “so wonderful,” Gubler ended up landing the role of Reid in the end.

One of the ways that Matthew Gray Gubler is very much like Dr. Spencer Reid is that he is extremely positive in real life and full of gratitude. He is grateful for his family and he is even grateful for the bullies he endured in school. He also says that entertaining people is the one thing he always knew he was meant to do from a very early age and admits, “That’s all I’ve wanted to do, make people feel like they’ve got a friend,” Glamour reports.

As a child he wore fedoras from the age of six, suggesting that at that time he looked like a 1920s gangster, and he also championed silk kimonos thanks to an introduction by his grandmother.

“Grandma Gubler, the most elegant and warm-hearted woman to ever walk the face of the earth, went to Japan when I was seven and again at nine, and brought me back a silk kimono. I loved it so much and wore it all the time.”

me at a beach boys concert when i was 11 pic.twitter.com/dWpZw7o1VN

— matthew gray gubler (@GUBLERNATION) December 9, 2015

While the creators of Criminal Minds may have originally rejected Matthew Gray Gubler as they thought he was a little too strange to play Dr. Spencer Reid, John Waters enjoys Gubler’s style so much that he asked Matthew to MC a show for him at the UCLA Royce Hall with Matthew Gray Gubler as a young Waters in the 1960s and John Waters thinks Gubler reminds him of himself when he was younger, as Matthew recalls.

“I look uncannily so much like him. He used to have really long hair, and I look like]that odd mix of Steve Buscemi and him. John almost played my dad on Criminal Minds, and we actually became friends.”

Besides acting, Matthew Gray Gubler is also an artist and a director, having even directed videos by The Killers. His unique worldview extends to his home, which Coveteur visited one day in Pasadena, and described it as almost a castle. His home is also described elsewhere as a haunted tree house as it has so much foliage around it, as Vanity Fair note.

Here he keeps his silk kimonos in a special closet and also owns a long fur coat that once belonged to the artist Edward Gorey. Gubler even had a special fireplace built so that it would look like a “drunk gnome” had made it sometime in the 1800s. For fun, Matthew Gray Gubler makes stuffed animals and jumps rope with his kimono and Converse trainers on. He also creates numerous drawings and paintings, some of which are on display around his home.

Is Dr. Spencer Reid your favorite character on Criminal Minds and what do you think will happen to Matthew Gray Gubler’s character during the rest of Season 12?

[Featured Image by Danny Moloshok/AP Images]