Talking with Matthew Gray Gubler

Matthew Gray Gubler is a writer, actor and model. At 39 years old, he has filmed 14 seasons of the well-known TV show “Criminal Minds,” and also just created his first children's book. The name of the book is “Rumple Buttercup” (Random House Books).

We really liked this book. Besides writing it, he did all the illustrations. The book is about a monster named Rumple Buttercup. Rumple lived underground where nobody could see him. The reason why he lived underground is because he was very weird looking. He had five crooked teeth, three strands of hair, green skin, and his feet were different sizes. Rumple always felt that people were going to look at him weirdly or be scared of him, and that is why he hid. One day Rumple found a banana peel, which he thought would be a good disguise for him so nobody could see him. Rumple just wanted to be normal like everyone else and he thought the banana peel would help. Rumple’s banana disappeared one day, and he thought he would never be able to disguise himself ever again, until someone told him that it is OK to be yourself and that nobody thinks he's weird, and nobody cared that he was different from everyone else. The moral of the story is to always be yourself.

As we interviewed Matthew, we asked if he was upset that “Criminal Minds” is wrapping up its final season and coming to an end. He feels that is it is bittersweet since he has filmed for the past 15 years, so it will be missed. Since it is over, he now has more time to create another book that he has in the works. Matthew has done so much in his career: Besides being an actor and author, he did modeling and even dabbled in magic. We also asked him if out of modeling, acting and writing, which one was his favorite. Overall, he feels that being an author combines all his jobs he has done into one. He is able to use creative freedom to help create his books, which is his favorite.

Another question we asked Matthew was what inspired him to create the character Rumple Buttercup. Matthew created the character for young kids and young people at heart by showing how Rumple is different and still manages to get through life his way.

In our conversation with Matthew, he says that will always continue to be himself and will never let fame change who he is. And we saw that! He was silly, serious and thoughtful throughout our conversation.

Now that “Criminal Minds” is coming to end, we asked if he would like to make doing magic into a career. Matthew loves doing magic and hopes in the future to make magic a bigger part of his life. Matthew has won many awards in his career for various things. He is definitely proud of winning awards, but he does not think that shows what he has accomplished. Winning awards is not his goal in his career; his goal is to encourage people to be themselves and to put smiles on people's faces with his work. Eventually, Matthew is hoping to make a book for adults, but still keep his creative drawings and personality in his writing. “Criminal Minds” has been a major part of his life and he thinks it has taught him many lessons and hope to demonstrate those lessons in his book and all he does after the show ends.

Overall, getting to interview Matthew Gray Gubler was a great experience and we all love to see all the new works he will continue to accomplish with his creative personality. Before we said goodbye, Matthew took some pictures with us. We thought it was great that he wore a Rumple Buttercup costume in some of the pictures, and when he autographed our books, he personalized the illustrations.