Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 1: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Mind Over Murder.
Speaker 4: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and we are
so happy today to have our three favorite retired FBI
agents joining us for a very special episode of Mind
over Murder discussing criminal minds, which just turned twenty years old. Jim,
Fitz and Bobby, thank you so much for can we
need us today?
Speaker 5: How you doing for having me?
Speaker 6: Great to be here, and just Jim and Fitz are
two different people.
Speaker 5: That's why you have to do that.
Speaker 6: Although Jim fitz is Jim fitz on his own, this
is Jim Clemente and Jim Fitzgerald and Bobby come and.
Speaker 5: Bobby don't forget.
Speaker 7: Oh who the host again?
Speaker 5: What are your names?
Speaker 7: Kristin Dilley and Bill Thomas? Wow, justid here we go
and I'll tell you thank you.
Speaker 4: We are so glad to see you guys, and thank
you for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 7: I know you've got very.
Speaker 4: Busy schedules, but we couldn't let Criminal Minds Turning twenty
pass by without having you jump on the pods talk
a little bit, even though you've all been on the
pod various times. Go ahead, and just real quick reintroduce
yourselves to our listeners and tell us about the role
you played on the Criminal Minds Creative staff fits.
Speaker 7: Let's start with you.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Jim Fitzgerald, FBI twenty years eighty seven to two
thousand and seven, New York for seven years profiling unit
from ninety five on, had a little case called Unibomb
and worked that. Then a few years later Jim Clemente
joined me. He joined me at the Academy, joined me
in New York on the bank robbery Squad.
Speaker 5: Then a few years later in New York.
Speaker 8: After New York went through a profiling unit in Quantico
and yeah, busy working cases there. Then around two thousand
and five, Jim said, Hey, there's a new show in Hollywood.
Fits let's do a phone call and help the writers out. Okay,
sounds good, Jim. And that's how I first got into
the whole Criminal mind sing thanks to Jim C.
Speaker 4: Of course, Jim C.
Speaker 7: You want to go next? Sure? I got involved actually
before the show started.
Speaker 6: Mandy Pittankin happened to be in Quantico because he wanted
to interview profilers before he decided whether or not to
be on the show. And I was recovering from a
bone male transplant at the time two thousand and five,
and I got a call from a friend who said, look,
I'm bringing this actor around. And he asked if there's
anybody in the FBI with a personality, because I guess
he's been with all the administrative people. So he called
me and said could you meet with him? And I said, look,
I can, but I have to wear a mask in
gloves because I'm recovering and I don't have an immune
system right now. And so we met at this bagel
place and I walk in and MANDYU. Tank and walks
up to me and shakes my hand, and he doesn't
say anything about Inigo Montoya, but he says, I'm Mandy
Patanka and I said, of course you're Mandy B.
Speaker 8: Tank.
Speaker 6: I got to do it, and he shook your hand.
He did shake my glove hand. He basically said, all right,
tell me your best case and your worst case. And
you might remember that name from somewhere. And I said,
tell you my best case. My worst case is not
for entertainment purposes. So I told him my best case
about an abduction where I helped save this six year
old boy. And as soon as I was done, he
picked up the phone called Mark Gordon said, I'll do
the show, but you got to meet this guy, Jim Clementy.
We got to bring him out. I want to base
my character on him. And I was like great. So
shortly thereafter I drove out to LA because I couldn't
fly yet. I met Mark Gordon, ed Buonaro, who's the showrunner,
and then the entire writing staff and then the cast
and I started telling the stories and they started becoming episodes,
and I became the tech advisor on the show, and
then shortly thereafter I got Jim Fitz to become the
official tech advisor on the show while I was still
an FBI agent, And then when I retired, I came
on as a full time writer, and in between season two,
I became an independent writer on the show. I wrote
an episode in season two.
Speaker 9: Award winning episode Jim It Yeah, one of Human Rights
Award actually, and then when I retired, I became a
full time writer and producer on the show all the
way through today.
Speaker 6: I'm still involved in the show. It's now Criminal Minds Evolution,
and Aman's involved as a consultant on the show. Now
I'm not in the writer's room. I am very very
happy to still be involved. We just wrapped season nineteen
and I noticed that in the Jim Fitz is Back
Crown you could see a little thing about a little
show called man Hunt Unibomber, which I also wrote and
created that show, just because when Jim was leaving in
two thousand and seven, I said, before you go, yeah,
we're going to talk, and I had him tell me
that his entire story with respect to the unibomb case,
and of course I knew a lot of it because
I was there with him at the Bau when it
was going on. But I also I knew that he
had a lot of other anecdotes to tell me. So
I wrote it all down and it took about ten years,
I think, before we actually got it on the screen,
but we did, and we got to tell Jim Fitz's
story and that was amazing.
Speaker 10: They couldn't find an actor's good looking as fits, so
they got Sam Worthington to play.
Speaker 5: He couldn't even talk Philly talk man.
Speaker 8: You know what I'm saying with it? Lass Wood and
Ogi the Australian did it.
Speaker 5: That's okay.
Speaker 4: And then Bobby, how did you get involved in criminal Minds?
Speaker 5: I parallel these guys.
Speaker 10: So I went to Chronicles on nineteen eighty and went
to New York as well, just like they did. But
I worked in mafia and then gangs and then Underwater.
I retired in twenty fourteen when in eighty seven came out.
In twenty fourteen, moved to Brazil with my wife, who
was the executive producer of the twenty sixteen Summer Olympics.
There in Brazil, so we were living there while she
was producing the Olympics, and I saw an email on
a retired agent's network chain thing that they were looking
for a technical advisor on a news series.
Speaker 5: I knew we were going to be moving.
Speaker 10: Back to LA eventually, so my wife and I talked
about it, and so I put an email in to
the people that were looking, and that was Jim and
his brother Tim clement Ay. They were both writers on
Criminal Minds. Tim was on the new show which was
Criminal Minds Beyond Borders, and I was taken. I flew
back to LA and I started working there immediately. In fact,
I flew to LA, landed and drove to the set
which was.
Speaker 7: I didn't know that, say yeah.
Speaker 10: I didn't meet Tim until I was already working three
or four days on set, and so I landed a
La extual write this Pedro where they were filming a
scene and Gary Snice was our lead and he was
running down this dock in San Pedro and jumping on
a boat and tackling a guy. So I was like
thrown right into the mix that the stunt coordinator I'm
still good friends with called me over and said, okay,
you're the guy. So tell Gary, show Gary, how he
should have his gun, how he should be chasing the
guy should be allstone he jumps, and how.
Speaker 5: All this has happened.
Speaker 10: And so I was immediately involved with an Academy nominated
actor and doing this kind of work. And so I
did that for two years, and I eventually, of course
met Tim and Jim, and I did that for two years.
That's how long the show was on two seasons. It
was the second actual spinoff of See because a few
years prior there was a cyber spin off of Mines
with I can see his face Jim, who was the
actor at the lead.
Speaker 7: Yes, it was Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior, which was.
Speaker 5: A cyber I believe, a cyber thing.
Speaker 7: Right, It was a hybrid kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: So ours was an international show, so it was basically
Profilers going overseas every so the team would just have
a bigger jeck because we took all cars into the gym.
Speaker 5: Heard it gona need a bigger jet, and that's what
we did.
Speaker 10: But so after that series ended, Jim very generously took
me back over to what we call the mothership and
went back to work Criminal Minds I believe season thirteen,
and so I was in the writer's room with Jim
learning what writers do in the room and what happens
in the room, and it's always basically consulting on stories
and things like that. And then in season fourteen, Jim
got me to the point where he basically got approval
for from the showrunner for me to call write an episode,
and Jim and I co wrote an episode, and that's
how I got into the writers Guild. And then we
wrote on a Nicole Kidman series after that. Jim and
I together on a streaming series after that. Yeah, and
that's what I do. And I have actually the script
right here. You can see it signed by all of
the casts.
Speaker 7: Very cool.
Speaker 6: Oh my god.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so all the casts signed it and wrote some things,
and the director signed it and Erica Messer signed it.
So yeah, so it was it was that's the I
owe everything to Jim and Tim. And we're still pitching shows.
We pitched a show last week. We're still out here
pitching FBI.
Speaker 6: Hopefully you'll be learning a lot more about Bobby's career
and that.
Speaker 5: Yeah that show goes out. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's my story.
Speaker 7: A quick question.
Speaker 2: We know that fits and Jim know each other from
their FBI careers. Do you not meet the Clementy brothers,
Jim and Tim until you joined Criminal Minds?
Speaker 5: Yes? Until I joined?
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, yeah, that was we Actually we crossed path but.
Speaker 10: Across paths, like we were all three of us here.
We're in the same office. But New York is such
a big office.
Speaker 7: It's the biggest.
Speaker 5: Office in the FBI, exponentially bigger than almost.
Speaker 7: What months were you in the FBI academy.
Speaker 10: I started in September of eighty seven. I graduated in
December of eighty seven.
Speaker 7: I know, so we overlapped. We started in November of
eighty seven.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so we were there for my mom.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we were. We overlapped there.
Speaker 6: We overlapped in New York office, and we overlapped on
Criminal Minds.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And I went straight to work in BQ.
Speaker 10: So I went, like I when I finished Quantico in December,
I got up to the week before Christmas and reported
for duty in New York at the BQ and what
we call MRA because it's a metropolitzer.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and Fitz was headed that way, but luckily we
got them sidetracked on to the Remember they were going
to have you work out of the Brooklyn Queen's ra
That would have added another hour to your two hour commute.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: We had a retired NYPD guy on Cold Red last
week and I said, I could have been working with
you back in the day if the FBI's original plan
came in. He was a car theft guy. But yeah,
luckily I wound up going next to Jim on on
c nineteen the bank robber squad, and the rest was
history there. Yeah, so it was a very big office
and and Bobby, we probably crossed paths, walked into each other.
The Gus Faracci case, Poe here recovering together, the guy
that killed the DEA agent.
Speaker 7: Did you work on that case, Bobby, Yeah, I was working.
Speaker 5: Organized I was working a little cases at the time.
Speaker 10: So every organized crime squad when Everett Hatcher got killed,
every organized crime squad was directed to work to Gus
Feracci case.
Speaker 7: And it is gust Saracci the agent that was killed.
Speaker 10: Ever Hatcher was the DA agent. Everett Hatcher was killed
by Gus Faracci.
Speaker 6: And I was on duty that night, and so I
got the call that's I was the first stagent to
respond there. And yeah, and the crime scene.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 8: It was a trup Thatt Island, New York, a quiet
part of Staten Island. These things unusually happen out there,
but we were all there. First time I ever used
a cell phone was on that case.
Speaker 7: Wow, it was still.
Speaker 8: Booked to the dashboard, this big wire. Fitzcaw twenty six pa.
I didn't get this record check run okay, And that
was my first use of a cell phone.
Speaker 6: You all right, can we since we're on this subject,
do you remember we sat surveillance that night on the
grandmother of Gus Faratti, the suspect in the case. Fitz
and I were sitting around the corner in a car
all night waiting to get a search warrant for her
house because we thought he might be hiding there. And
as the sun came up, it looked like one of
the neighbors was looking out the window at us.
Speaker 7: Remember that.
Speaker 6: And it was actually a poster from I think it
was Ken ken Wall from the show Wise Guys, And
they thought it was funny having this undercover FBI agent
in the window looking over a mob guy's house. So anyway,
that was funny when that when we realized who it was,
it was one of one of the.
Speaker 7: Fun side notes of being in the FBI.
Speaker 8: Surprise, I've never made it into a Criminal Minds episode next.
Speaker 6: Time, Yeah, absolutely, Hopefully we'll have season twenty and I'll
make sure it's in there.
Speaker 4: Jim Clementy, I know that you said that Mandy Patinkink
based whose character off of you and fits. I know
that you had a hand in writing a character Alex Blake,
who was a forensic linguist. Do you feel like, is
there a Criminal Minds character in particular who you really
strongly identify with? If you had to swap places with
a Criminal Minds character for the day, who would you
swap with?
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I thought about that before, and I'm very
secure in my masculinity. However, I think the Alex Blait
character would be the one.
Speaker 7: Well, which is the name, Yeah, that's true forensic linguist.
Speaker 8: She taught at Georgetown University, where I got my second master's,
and of course that's where my future wife taught, So yeah,
she was really based on me, having worked the Unibomb
case as a rookie. I wasn't technically a rookie on Unibomb,
but that's how our character was written, and they had
met Natalie. My then fiance would come in to a
studio in the writer's room a few times in LA
and that was actually Glendale, right, What was it? Where
was that office?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 7: It was Glendale, ye.
Speaker 8: Anyway, and they liked her, and I said, here's the
idea you want to give her. They already hired Gene tripleharn.
They just didn't know what they had her name picked out.
I think they just didn't know what kind of a background. Said,
do you guys know me forensic linguists worked? You met
my professor fiance.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 8: She's a professor at Georgetown and she's also an FBI profiler.
Said why do I tell Natalie this? Because that doesn't
happen in real life. And there's one famous scene it
probably happened a few times where Alex doctor Blake is
teaching her course in socio linguistics and her cell phone
goes off. She answered, it looks at the teaching assistant,
you take over, I'm out of here, and just walks
out on her tat Now, I said, oh my god,
I'd give anything for a call like that. It was
definitely like imitating art there. But she I think at
least one time I gave her a call and got
her out of class early. So yeah, that was my
character I helped create, and I'm very proud of that.
I think Jean did a great job. And the two
hundredth episode party was in Las Vegas. Jim, what year
was that?
Speaker 7: Twenty thirteen? Maybe jumping around there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and if you introduced me, I had not met
Jean triple Horn.
Speaker 5: So Natalie and I walk over.
Speaker 8: And bebia Jean and her husband was there. This is
a Natalie shilling.
Speaker 7: Jim Fitzgerald.
Speaker 8: They created your character and you were very nice how
you put it, and Jeene without missing a beat, just
looks at it.
Speaker 5: He goes, Hi, Mom, Hi Dad.
Speaker 8: So that's my.
Speaker 7: Character, Jim Cliny, how about you?
Speaker 4: Do you feel like you're a Jason Gideon or have
you David Rossie Spencer Reid.
Speaker 6: See, I don't know if there's any real Spencer Reid.
He's just too brilliant and goofy but and go looking.
But so yeah, Mandy's character was first based on me.
When Mandy left after Senior season two, we bought in Joe,
so we kind of actually at that point we split
my character between Joe Montagna and Shamar Moore, and it
was Yeah, it was great because I actually really respect
Schamar for playing the role that he played in Profile
and Profile the Foundation and Restoration, which is a story
of how I became an FBI agent and went after
the guy who molested me.
Speaker 7: It took a lot of guts.
Speaker 6: For Schmar to do that, and I know that when
he left the show, when he went on to star
in The Swat in his own series, he said that, listen,
I've been doing this for over twenty years, and the
best episodes of TV I've ever done, the best acting
I've ever done, has been those three episodes, and he
really thanked me for it.
Speaker 7: So that was really cool.
Speaker 6: But of course, Joe being the first Italian American FBI profiler,
which I believe I was, it was great because Joe
is a prince of a man, and everybody to a
person loves him on the set and every set he
walks on too. He's such a good man and such
a great guy, and such a great actor, and he's
a man.
Speaker 7: He's done so many amazing things.
Speaker 6: I guess it's a split between those three actors in
terms of who I can relate to the most like
Jim Fitz says, the female actors that have been on
the show, from aj Cook to Paget Brewster, every single
one of them has been amazing.
Speaker 7: And who's yours look?
Speaker 10: And this is one of This is a that I
always have to say right when I'm on the news
because I'm associated with Kerminlines to a degree and with
these guys to a degree, and so I always have
to remind you I was not a profiler, because I
feel there's a lot of people out there now in
the profiling space who are claiming credentials that are not legitimate.
Speaker 5: Right, these guys laugh because they know it.
Speaker 10: And literally I am on either text or a call
with either of these two guys literally daily, right, We're
parts of text change that we were constantly texting each other,
know each other, and they know because I'll ping them.
If I get called to do a story that's more profiling,
I'll tell them to go to profile and that they
really want me on the story because only part of
it is profiling. I will ask these guys what their
opinion is on that story that I cover on the
news or whatever, and then I will make sure that
I say on there that I am not a profile,
because I think it's very important that people know to
call yourself a pro because there are so many people nowadays.
And these guys get text from me saying hey, with
so and so a profiler because they call themselves a
profile and I know they were in the FBI, and
they'll be like, no, they were actually an VAVC coordinators,
not a profiler, and so I'm like, so you have
to be really careful because there are so many people.
So I was never a profile. I did not go
through the I don't have the experience the education of that.
And it's very because when I call somebody an up profile,
that's a proud thing. There's not a lot of them.
And I just feel really horrible if I ever forget
and I start talking about profiling and I'm saying something
that I learned from these two guys earlier in the
day because I thinking them about the story, and I
always try to make sure that I know that, make
sure people know that I was never a profiler. But
I do know plenty of them, and really good ones obviously.
Speaker 7: But you were an amazing investigator and we all have profile. Yeah, yeah,
absolutely amazing investment.
Speaker 10: So yeah, so I don't know. Like I said, I
broke in with Beyond Boarders. So Gary and are still friends.
Gary Sones and I are still friends. We spoke yesterday.
And Daniel is a good friend of Minedaniel Henney who
then went on to the Bigger Show and now he's
on that Wheel of Time on Netflix. He's involved in
it's when those Game of Thrones type big things, and
him and I still.
Speaker 5: Talk and stuff. And Adam.
Speaker 10: I got along really well with Adam when I went
over to the Mothership. But I don't see myself in
any of these profiles because it's just not something I did.
I know the stories, I know the investigations and have
because one things crim My Minds did it combined the
profile and with the investigation, and so that's where I
would come in and help with the investigated part of it,
because they always go and either hook up with a
local cop and where of the going or an agent
in that field office. And so that's the kind of
role that I would be playing. Episode that Jim and
I wrote together, it would be Tony Dennison, his character
that kind of was out there and that was he
actually was watch him season three. He was the sergeant,
and yes, fourteen we went back and he was now
the Captain of the Chief, So same actor twelve years apart,
playing the same character in two different episodes.
Speaker 6: But yeah, and that was actually something I tried to do,
was bring back people who were in the early episodes.
Speaker 7: And Molly Culver is.
Speaker 6: One that I brought back a couple of times, and
Brandon Rush was another.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: And what was great about being a writer is that
you had a lot of freedom in terms of what
you know, what you did, and who you hired and
so forth. And even though the casting process is it's
a very intricate and detailed and difficult process, a lot
of times it can be very i don't know, brutal
to the actors. And I tried as much as I
could to make it a little easier because I felt
we'd get amazing performances from people and auditions they either
looked too much like a person that we already had,
or they were more stage performance versus TV performance, or
things like that, or sometimes it's just it was like,
we got five or six people that will do great
in this part, we just have.
Speaker 7: To it's a random pick.
Speaker 6: We'll just take this one and I always want to
make sure that every time somebody came in that room,
I would say you did a great job, thank you
so much for coming, because it's such a hard thing
to do.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you're listening to mind Over Murder. Will be
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I could attest that.
Speaker 10: I remember we were casting for our episode and I'm
walking over to the trailer and there's like a little
couple of steps up to the trail. There's a line
of actors coming in one at a time, and like
I've got the script in my hand, and so they
know like I'm one of the people. They don't know
who I am yet, but so I go in and
take my seat with Jim Or and you can see
how nervous they all are. This is this is season
season fourteen, a hit show on primetime on CBS. This
would be a big break for any of these day
play actors, that would you know. And so they're all
they've got their side, they're studying their lines in the
line and you can see their faces are like so
nervous and this is like a big deal. I didn't
feel that way because these are people I work with
every day, Jim and Erica and Lisa, the casting folks
and stuff. And so I go into the trail and
I take a seat and I'm like, oh, this is fun.
But for them, I didn't get that feeling until I
actually walked past them on that line to feel the
nerves that they were feeling. And this is this is
much bigger to them than it was to me, Like
this was like everything to them. This is what they've
been hoping for. Their agent got them. They're hoping to
get in there and kill it. And then, like Jim said,
it's a tough thing to do because it's not like
you've got a costume on or anything. You just handed
a couple of lines and you're not even handed the
whole script, and you've got to stand up in this
trailer with no accouch from all.
Speaker 5: No, no, nothing, just give the line.
Speaker 10: And it was a lot more difficult than I ever
envisioned it until I saw it live like.
Speaker 5: That, And I did feel for them.
Speaker 10: I know Jim really fell because I know like he
when they left and we would all talk about it,
you could say Jim was really invested in it. And
I felt that way too, because I was like, man,
this is this is important stuff for these people. This
could be like a makeup This could be the one
that the person says, if I don't get this role,
I'm quitting Hollywood, going back home to.
Speaker 5: Iowa or whatever. This could be that role for somebody
in that line.
Speaker 6: Brandon Rush was a perfect example. He's a guy who
never got a line in a show, and we gave
him his first line.
Speaker 7: He appreciated.
Speaker 6: On the day we were shooting, he had the flu,
he getting barely he talked, but he powered his way
through it. After that, he's done something like seventy seven
other shows.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a recurring guy on Blue Bloods. Yeah, Swat
he was on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was on so many crime shows because of that,
And that's why it was so important. And we try
to give as many people as we could chances to
do that because there's so many good actors out there
and there's so few parts, and especially recently, there's so
many fewer parts. But what the fact is that the
quality of acting that we got and that show was
really amazing.
Speaker 2: Bobby, you referenced something, and for the benefit of our listeners,
if you can explain what a side is you mentioned
their side sides.
Speaker 10: Sides are like tiny little pages of a script, so
they'll be like for us as writers when we go
on set. The sides are all the dialogues, the pages
of the script that are going to be done that day,
so you don't have to have the whole script in
your hand. You have maybe seven eight nine pages that
are going to be shot that day, and the side
the smaller version of that, the sides that the actors
would get with just and see this is eight and
a half by eleven, which is your regular script. The
sides are like much smaller. They're like a large index
card size of a page, and it just has the
lines that they have to read for their particular audition.
Sides are generally everybody on set has the sides for
that day and you throw them away and the next
day you get the new sides, which are the six
seven eight pages of the script that are going to
be shot that day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because scripts are not shot in the order of
the script. They're shot in the order of when the
actors are available, when the site that we are going
to shoot at is available, when the director feels that
the lighting would be best for this kind of scene.
There's all sorts of different things that go into that calculation,
and sometimes it's completely out of your control where you're
trying to shoot at this jail and oh no, it's
not available till the second to the last day of shooting.
You really wanted to shoot that scene early because then
it puts the actors in the mind of what's going on.
And this is really part of the really difficult work
of being a TV actor. You have to understand that
in this when you shoot this episode, there's going to
be a time when you're frantic trying to save this person,
and that might be the very first thing you do.
And then a day later or three days later, you're
shooting when you first get the case, and you're not
supposed to know anything about it or who the bad
guy was.
Speaker 7: Or anything like that.
Speaker 6: So that's part of acting that behind the scenes, it's
a lot more difficult than you think.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's almost unique to TV acting, too, because in
a film, you've got an emotional arc of a character
that goes through the whole film, and they're much different
character by the end of the film than there or
at the beginning of the film. You have a similar
arc in an episode of television, that actor has to portray.
And so if there's an emotional arc in that if
they're shooting on day two a scene from the end
of the show, they've got to get themselves in that
emotional space of that particular part of the character's emotion
r on that day, even though they haven't had time
to ramp up to that because we don't choot in sequence,
and so it's a particular challenge. I think a lot
of times for TV actors that maybe sometimes feature actors
don't necessarily face.
Speaker 8: I remember too a guest star. I think he was
in an arc of a few episodes, Tim Curry. I
forget what season that would have been, maybe ten or.
Speaker 7: Twelve, but I was going and I think I was
going maybe.
Speaker 5: A few times this season.
Speaker 8: I've never lived in la but he was very nice
and Natalie and some other people.
Speaker 5: I was giving a little tour of the set.
Speaker 8: They loved them from Rocky Horror Picture Show. And what
Bobby and Jim were saying, these actors have to prepare
themselves this day, have.
Speaker 5: A border that day.
Speaker 8: The whole day we were there, Tim Curry was in
costume and in makeup. He had these real grimy tea
and one of the people I.
Speaker 5: Introduced, oh, could I please take a picture sir.
Speaker 8: Or any smiles? And he has these grimy teeth. He
was a year tour or something, so I can relate
to that for him. But I don't think he smiled
too too obviously when those pictures, because and someone said
that his real teeth.
Speaker 6: I said, I know, I have a picture with them
too from that and he's smiling like broadly, and like
everybody who've seen it said, oh my god, he must
be British.
Speaker 7: Anyway, I wasn't going to go there, Jim No, but
I thought the same thing.
Speaker 4: I just got his memoir over the weekend, and he's
got a whole section devoted to Criminal Minds and how
much he.
Speaker 7: Enjoyed the Shadow and how he is Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he actually he was talking about how he went
to the same gym as Kristin Vingsnas and he actually
asked her is there anything available on Criminal Minds right now?
Because he wanted to play a part, and so she managed.
Speaker 7: To hook him up with that. Wow.
Speaker 6: And I remember in the writer's room when Ed Buonaro
told us, Hey, guess who wants to come on and
so the episodes were actually written with him in mind.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, because doing this show, Yes, yep, Prince of Darkness.
Speaker 5: He was great.
Speaker 4: While I have all three of you here, because I
know Bobby is going to have to leave us in
a couple of minutes, I want to get into talking.
Speaker 7: About specific episodes.
Speaker 4: And so when I knew I was going to have
the three of you, I asked each of you to
give me an episode that it was particular importance to you,
either because you helped write it or because the story
had some personal impact. I want to get into some
of those episodes first. So I actually want to go
ahead and start with because Jim c and Bobby have
alluded to this one already, let's talk a little bit
about Ghost, which you both co wrote together. It was
the last season of Criminal Minds when it aired on
CBS before it jumped to Paramount Plus. And I like
the fact that we have you guys because FITZI were
there at the beginning, Jim Clementy you've been there all
the way around, and Bobby you didn't come into the end.
But I love knowing that you guys can see the
continuum of the way the whole entire series has gone. Yeah,
so Bobby, my first question before we get into episodes specifics,
is for you, you came onto the Criminal mindset when
there'd been like a lot of casting changes, There's been
a lot of creative team shake up some things like that.
Speaker 7: What was it like walking onto an already established show.
Speaker 4: You've obviously got a little bit of an advantage because
Jim so well, But what was it like to come
onto set that was very clearly obviously like we're family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 10: You would think that it would have been intimidating or
a little click issue or something, but I found it
really welcoming.
Speaker 5: I found it.
Speaker 10: I was two years prior on this spin off show,
so I did get to see some and get to
know some people, but it was a different type of thing.
Is beyond boarders. I was on set every day and
in the Mothership. I was literally in the writer's room
every day. But when you write an episode, you're also
on set for that episode. So it was really it
was amazing because what Jim had told me, Jim and
Tam told me just making an education. I felt like
it was a film school. You go and you're on
the set of a hit show and you're learning everything.
Now I'm in the writer's room with all of these
really established writers, but they were all so friendly and
so welcoming. I would sit I would walk into it
was a Bruce Zimmerman his office, so said, oh, Chris
Barber's office, and sit in there and just picked their brain.
Speaker 8: Hay.
Speaker 5: And really when.
Speaker 10: It really taught me, like, these guys call themselves writer producers,
and they really are, because as you're writing a television
show like this, you're really producing it in your head
at the same time. I'll give you example, and one
we were writing our episode. I had the thing I
had to write the board. You have to write all
your acts on the board and stuff. And so we
did the scenes and the cards and Chris Barber was
looking at it one day and he says, okay, look
here and here. So I had the way I had
written was we're interviewing on day two or something mom
and dad and the sister of somebody, and in they
ate their back at the house. And he says, you
can't do that because that's two locations and it's three
different speaking parts.
Speaker 5: So put this in the We're gonna put this in
the police station.
Speaker 10: We're gonna have them come to the police station, which
we have on three or four different shows, three or
four different days. So you're taking them out of the
living room because that's a one less location, putting them
into a police station, which you already have in other scenes,
and so you're cutting down on your scenes, and you're
having the dad talk and not the sister talk. So
now you're cutting down a speaking part. That's all money
for production. So all of that is that's why you're
a writer producer, because as you're writing it, you're like,
I didn't know that that was really hard to learn.
Speaker 5: But for somebody like Jim who's worked on it for years,
you had.
Speaker 7: To learn it too.
Speaker 10: Yeah, but by at some point it's automatic and you're
not creating additional budget to additional locations and different actors
and stuff coming onto that set.
Speaker 5: I remember I was talking.
Speaker 10: I made good friends with the stunt coordinator because that
him and I as a technical advisor, are attached, and
the armorer and even the sound guys. The sound guy,
I really learned fast on these things. Coming that in
season thirteen, and we weren't we thought we were going
to fourteen, which we were, and stuff but I came
right after because the whole Hotch controversy happened while I've
over on Beyond Borders, so I missed all of that,
the whole all of that and some of the other things.
And Shamar was gone already by the time I got there.
Hotch was already gone by the time I got there.
And so when I got there, Daniel came in and
he came over from Beyond Borders. We kind of came
into a very well oiled machine and they were very welcoming.
Speaker 5: There was no feeling of being an outsider. It was
right in. All the writers were great.
Speaker 10: I think one of the writers came over from Beyond Borders.
Speaker 7: I think Chris did.
Speaker 5: And then Erica Meredith was Did she come over from
Beyond Boarders.
Speaker 7: She was Erica's assistant and then yeah, went.
Speaker 10: To Beyond Boarders because I knew her from Beyond Borders,
so I knew some of the writers.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it was not.
Speaker 10: Knowing anything else coming into a major show that's a
hit and has been a hit for years. It was
now I look back and said, that was a well
oiled machine. Everybody was like top of their profession and
you don't now and obviously you wouldn't be there if
you weren't because from Erica Messer to bring.
Speaker 7: To from Us from OZ, he directed OZ.
Speaker 10: It was a great It was just a great experience
and go into a show that was so long running
and so everybody knew what.
Speaker 5: They were doing, and it was a good learning experience
for me.
Speaker 7: We used an industry term, let's help for our listeners.
What does an armorer do?
Speaker 10: And armor works with any kind of weapons on set.
So our crew, our team obviously all carries guns. So
the armor is responsible for the guns, even prop.
Speaker 5: Guns, real guns.
Speaker 10: We don't use real guns, but prop guns and things
like that. So the armor always is the one that's
in charge of all of those things. He works with
the special effects people on the guns and things like that.
So it's a team effort, but the armor is responsible
for all the weapons on set.
Speaker 5: So Erica Messer, she was.
Speaker 10: Actually our show runnerund Beyond Borders and she was running
the mothership at the same time.
Speaker 5: An incredible woman.
Speaker 10: And then Glenn Kershaw who was like always at her
right hand, and Harry Bing who was Jim.
Speaker 7: He was like the the line producer.
Speaker 10: Line producer, so he was the budget guy so he
watched all the Frieden Frasier who was the head writer, Bruce.
Speaker 5: Emmerman, who was a novelist but a writer in the.
Speaker 10: Room, was an experienced guy, and Chris Barber, all of
the Stephanie Sang Goopta, all of these incredible writers that
gave their time to me as a neophyte and taught
me all these different things. I just I was a
sponge where I sat in Jim's office and watched him work.
I remember still, Jim, the episode that you wrote that
I did the research on, with the mercy killing nurse
and things like that, with the Jews and stuff, and
that was and again one of my that's probably my
second favorite episode.
Speaker 4: I'm an English teacher, so of course I look for
themes and things, and one of the big themes that
I saw in Ghost was this sense of being comrades
at arms and leaving no man behind. I'm just curious
to the three of you consider yourselves to be brothers
in arms because of the bonds you share with the
FBI and with being consultants on this ship.
Speaker 5: How do you feel about that?
Speaker 7: Absolutely go fits no.
Speaker 8: We Jim, you and I kicked indoors together in the
South Bronx and in Brooklyn in our New York days,
and we worked definitely work cases together as profilers. And
then three thousand miles due west of there, we were
doing the same thing in Hollywood. And yeah, Jim kicked
open a lot of doors in Hollywood, and I was
usually there right behind.
Speaker 5: Them a long time a few times.
Speaker 8: So yeah, and then Bobby came along later when I
knew Bobby's in Bobbin, I just my personal life. I
was never I wasn't ready to move to La and
Jim did right away, I know Bobby did. So they
definitely got more in constant in the whole field there.
But I made sure there was twice at least twice
a season I was out there. What was a gym
every June where they broke stories, and that was important
a week to be there. The writer just came back
from there twelve weeks or so off eight or twelve
weeks after the season ended. So I was always a
privileged to be there for that. And yeah, they would
pick my brain too, And most of my work in
seasons three and four was done by telephone and by emails.
Speaker 5: Right, I would we descript and go over in that way.
Speaker 8: But yeah, as far as brothers kicking indoors in real time,
but also doing it on not filming, but recording, these
episodes meant a lot to us, and we backed each
other up all the time and still do as a
matter of absolutely.
Speaker 6: And Bobby and I, when we were in the room
together many times on Criminal Minds and on other shows
that we worked on together, had to deal with what
is unfortunately a typical writer's thing, which is relying on
what they have seen or read or heard as opposed
to what they have experienced. This is something that Bobby
and I and Jim Fitz brought to Criminal Minds, and
I think, I like to think anyway that it is
one of the reasons why it has had such staying
power because we have real learning points in every episode,
and some of the writers have come up with really
extremely bizarre scenarios and we tried to pull them into
back to reality and try to make it use learning
points from cases that we actually work even though circumstances
and names and the types of crimes are different. We
tried to use real teaching points in every episode.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and when Ghosts we did not only that, not
only do we have the characters Daniel's character and Adam's
character as kind of brothers on the Profiling are but
the bad guys also had brothers the bad guy. So
we had the bad the good brothers, and we had
the bad brothers in that episode, so we actually highlighted
it from both ends of that. But they weren't blood
brothers Adam and Daniel their characters, but they were certainly
at the end in the jet you see them say
he has a ranger.
Speaker 5: Never leave a brother behind, fellaw ra.
Speaker 2: Join us again next time as we continue our conversation
with Jim Clemente, James Fitzgerald, and Bobby Shacone and their
roles as creative staff on the hit TV show Criminal Minds,
now celebrating its twentieth anniversary. That's it for this episode
of Mind Over Murder. Thanks so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
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Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
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Speaker 7: Five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder