Criminal Minds: Great Matthew Gray Gubler, Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds, interview:
TNH: First of all, are you aware that you are actually the nicest person in existence?
MGG: Oh, no. Thank you for saying that, though.
TNH: Most people wouldn't wait around for two hours to meet 600 or 700 college kids.
MGG: If they're waiting, I'm waiting. I would demand on out-waiting anybody.
TNH: You said that this is your first time doing anything on stage; is that true?
MGG: Somewhat true. I mean, it's my first time doing like, an evening of anything. I've been in plays in high school and stuff like that, but I've always wanted to sort of self-generate. I'm jealous of my friends like Steve that are in bands, and they're like, "We make something and then we go out and perform it!" As an actor, you're kind of trapped in this world of, "Oh, someone writes something and if I'm lucky I get put in it and I go out and I say those words." I've always had this dream of being able to do something like that. It's hard for an actor, so this was like an absolute, wonderful, dream-come-true and a great opportunity.
TNH: What made you decide on UNH?
MGG: They called and asked! My agent called and was like, "Do you want to do some public spea—" and I was like, "Yup!" And he's like, "You didn't let us finish." And I said, "No, that's great." I got to do this thing for this filmmaker, John Waters, where he had me introduce him at this comedy event that he was doing and that sort of went really well, and I was like, "Oh, I'm so jealous." He does like an hour-long show, sort of similar to this, and I was like, "Oh, what a cool guy," and then two days later, they called. UNH called and it was like, "Oh my gosh! They read my mind."
TNH: How did you go about coming up with material to present at something like this?
MGG: Thanks, you know, I don't know! I like challenges and basically, I said yes not knowing what I was gonna do and then I sort of started thinking about it. I just went through my life and kind of thought of some interesting stories that I thought might relate. And then the sort of nunchuck thing popped in there and then I got the idea to do the nunchuck thing. Then I was like, well I love telling ghost stories, but I've always been nervous to do it in big groups because I wasn't sure how it would translate. Ghost stories are so good when there's like six people. Can you do it with— so part of it was like an experiment to see, and I think it went pretty well. It's hard to say.
TNH: What was the general reaction that you got from people you met after the show?
MGG: I think they loved it, unless they were lying. They were very good liars if they were.
TNH: How did you come up with the pajama party thing? Where did that come from?
MGG: You know, that was sort of built out of— I love slumber parties and I love fun and it kind of, to me, in a weird way, was a way to deal with the fear of like "I'm doing some speaking" and it was called a "lecture." I'm like, "Oh, damn, a lecture? I'm not qualified to lecture. What am I qualified to do? I'm qualified to have a pajama party." I'm also really big into performance art, if that makes any sense, and like Andy Kaufman, and I thought "College kids don't want to go to a damn lecture. College kids, what do they want to do? Pajama party!" It was a fun way to make it more of a party and less of a talk. Talks are boring.
Continued here: http://www.tnhonline.com/arts/ten-minutes-with-matthew-gray-gubler-1.2213161
