Kirsten Vangsness – Criminal Minds: Evolution

By starrymag | May 23, 2025

By: Mariah Thomas

 

 

 

Q) Garcia had a stare down with Voit with her glasses off. In the first episode of this season there’s a mirrored moment of that. Why is Garcia so open to seeing his humanity? And what will the dynamic of their relationship look like as the season goes on?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: When we did that thing with the glasses off, I had a little playlist because it’s a silent moment. You’re having this silent moment. So, you want to get it really full? I don’t know. We all have our things we do as actors or whatever. So, I had a playlist I was listening to. And I was like, kind of like, “Okay, what’s gonna happen?” And then you kind of let it all go. You do the prep work. Let it all go and have the minute, and I remember looking at him and just feeling…I believe Garcia knows this more than even me. I don’t believe that people are inherently evil. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as that. I think that gets people off the hook. And I think there’s such a thing as being radically responsible for your choices. I believe there’s reprehensible behavior. I believe that there are people that consistently do reprehensible behavior that needs to stop. And I believe that you should be able to say to people like, your behavior is not okay, stop it. And I think that like when she looked at him, she was having that encounter of like, seeing that part of him that is the human that was treated in such a way that made him make these other choices because that’s how his primary caregiver taught him how to regulate his nervous system, which is so horrible and terrible. And I think she really wants to believe that. That’s how she gets through. And I think that’s how I get through. I think that’s how a lot of us get through. It’s really hard because we do live in a world where there’s people with a thing called borderline personality or narcissists or whatever where you’re trying to find the silver bullet. You’re trying to find the key. You want to believe that there’s something there besides the smoke and mirrors, and if you can make them see what they did was wrong, it’ll be okay. And there are people that you keep, and they don’t have the wiring to see, “Oh, I did that wrong.” They literally don’t. They don’t have the wiring to believe in wonder or anything outside of themselves. They only believe that they’re a god. So, it’s almost like he thought that, and something in it got smashed, and maybe he believes in wonder. Maybe he could believe that what he did was wrong. You can make everything from there. You can’t make anything from it. So, I think she’s full of a lot of hope as I am for a lot of people.

 

Q) In “Evolution” Garcia seems to be in a bit of a love tug of war with Tyler and Luke in the last two seasons. But this season that dynamic has shifted a lot to more of a fun, friendship banter. How was Garcia able to make that shift from romantic feelings to platonic with both of them?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Therapy? I love her flaws, which happen to be some of mine and some of my flaws. She’s way more flawed than me, and vice versa. I mean, some of the things she’s got aces at I’m terrible at like typing. Like she’s got terrible boundaries – terrible, terrible boundaries. She’s so porous with how she feels with “what’s your radio station? What’s my radio station?” It’s so all over the place. And I think that what we see, I’m gonna maintain this now, which might not be what you see on the screen, but I’m not paying attention to that. Pay attention to what was real. She’s trying to go for like I don’t know what’s happening. I’m just like, “That was a bad choice.” The Tyler of it all was a “look, I’m healthy.” Who among us haven’t been like, “I’m healthy now. I make great choices,” and then you give us somebody you’re like “you’re doing egregious things like this is not okay. And now I have to cut the cord.” And now I’m like, “I can’t believe I dated them. Oh my God. And now they’re working here. And do I have a crush on him? I can’t tell.” So, I think it’s like taking a breath and just reduce harm. I think that she’s like this – “let’s just all just be friendly and do our work.” There’s a lot to be done this season. So, I think that’s where she’s coming from.

 

Q) Garcia has always been a light in her friends lives. She and Emily are there for JJ through this massive loss of Will. It seems like they can’t fully break through to her as the season goes on. What would their approach be to support her?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: I think that the approach is- and there’s crossover, and like the friendships of it all, and like our personalities and whatever. I’m a very – like I want to get in there and give you a hug, and whatever, and notoriously it’s like…I think it’s not well like meaning like I think, that Garcia being like, “Oh, I want to take care of you.” She’s like, “Stay over there because I don’t want to cry. You stay over there.” And I feel like they all feel sort of process by being workaholics, which is a bad idea. But I think that that’s what it is. I think it’s like, “I’m right here. I’m right here,” and Garcia is trying to – I think not go to her. And that’s her way of sharing love. It’s like “I want to just jump to you, but I’m not gonna. I’m gonna let other people.” Like it’s funny because you would think that because she’s such a warm, soft blanket, Garcia, you would think that she’s the one that you’d want. But sometimes with certain kinds of personalities, they can love you but when they’re feeling that sensitive, they need someone almost of the same vibe as them to be with them to process that. And I think that’s what’s happening is like Garcia is kind of like, “I’m gonna let these other people that can tend to her better do it.”

 

Q) You and the other ladies seem to have strong supportive friendships off screen as well as on screen, even if we don’t see it. Do you think the BAU ladies have their own version of your Hot Tub Wine machine?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: They must, right? I would say that like every moment before we’re shooting, if we’re in a scene together, we’re all together. We’re this little coven of like, “What are you doing? What do you need? What’s happening?” It’s a constant, never ending support for each other at any given moment. Whatever it is, it is a complete sisterhood, without a doubt, like hands down like I’m so proud. And I’m proud because I feel like when people come in and guest people come in, I want people to see like this is how we want the world we want to live in. This is the community we want to be in with work, and especially as feminine creatures who the things that people have to transcend and deal with in whatever way you show up in the world. I think that this kind of thing is important to develop so that people feel it when you watch the show, which I think you can.

 

Q) During Will’s funeral you give a beautiful and emotional speech. Emily and JJ have heartfelt speeches, too. What was it like filming and processing that pivotal and very devastating loss to the show?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: You know, it’s terrible. It’s horrible. It’s great that it’s not theater, and we have reruns. You know what I mean? And that like you can plop yourself back in the times that you want it to be in. That’s the fun part about being on a show like this. But it was awful. The whole thing was just, I mean, but also beautiful like that doesn’t exist. That awful doesn’t exist unless you have a show that’s going on this long. You have these big relationships and all that stuff. So, like it’s all happening at the same time. And you have this terrible cognitive like dissonance that I was having. I remember when we were shooting, because it’s like “this is a big deal. You want this to be very good.” So you, as character, are being like, “Let this be very good.” And then, as the actor you’re like, “Please be very good,” like, “Please, Kirsten, don’t screw this up for everybody.” Like you have those moments where – everybody’s a little like, not on edge, but like everybody wants to do right by the character.

 

Q) Oh, yeah, and you did. I just watched the episode as I was getting ready. And I was like, “This was a terrible idea. Now I’m like trying not to cry.”

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Oh, thank you. And just the gift of having Linda Lavin with us who is just a gift, a gift, a gift for anybody who gets to watch her artistry. That was that in of itself was wonderful.

 

Q) You helped write a handful of episodes on the original run of the show. Have there been conversations about writing new episodes in evolution?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Yeah, there hasn’t, because we only have 10 episodes. And we have incredible writers. And do you know, I love this about the show, most of the writers, besides the executive producers, those were people that were working, not as writers, but as like pa’s, writer’s assistants in the writers room, and they’ve moved up, and they’re writing the episodes. It’s different, our directors, our actors can come in and we can direct. And we’re not taking away something from people there at work. I don’t love it enough to be like, “let me take it away from someone who loves genuinely loves writing that kind of stuff.” I don’t think that I can do it. And if there was one that just comes up, that’s just an Erica one, and she’s like, “Hey, I want you to help me write it.” I would. I would do it, do that in a heartbeat, but it just hasn’t come up, and I’m totally okay with that.

 

Q) Early on Garcia’s style was more tame. How did it come to be that her character would be so expressive through fashion?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Oh, I think that it’s a mix of like me and the costume designer of the moment, which we’ve had two separate ones, and both of them are incredible. I like letting her do stuff. And now it’s gone real. It’s gone everywhere. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it and I think that it’s a cool mix of what I like. Now she’s less label-y. She used to be a little more label-y, and now she’s less label-y, more bespoke. More like they take three dresses and just put all together, or they make the dress. And then a couple more. Once I found somebody that on Etsy that I’m like, “Oh, my God! They make cool earrings,” and then, now we have that. I love that DIY mix because it’s not like thrown together, and she’s got a very clear thing that she’s working with. But I think she’s like – it’s like she found a sewing machine. I really I’m into it.

 

Q) So, with this new format of the show, we see that each season focuses on different characters, kind of deeply exploring them. What would you want to see for Garcia?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: I wish I could give you an answer, but like no one would like my answer. I would be like, “It’s about radical responsibility and reforming the prison system. It’s about just people talking about processing and alchemizing.” No one would want to watch if it was up to me. We would pet baby goats. No, it’d be a cooking show. No one wants my story. But I’m really hoping that people are into it. Enough that we get some more seasons because I feel like Garcia’s time is nigh. I feel like her season is almost upon us.

 

Q) No, we need it! I need like twenty more seasons. What are some scenes, or even episodes, this season that you feel most proud of the work you put into?

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Gosh! That’s always so hard for me to answer because I am just so proud of the environment that we foster there. I’m just so proud of it. I’m just proud that I get to be in the room. I’m still there, and that, like the people…It is what you think it is. It is there. It’s not like a fake thing, and we all care so much. And we care about actually like showing like the underbelly. But also we care about showing, like the integrity of and the responsibility that you have to have to have a job where you have great power like that. And I just …And I love being people’s guilty pleasure.

 

Q) So much, I love it so much.

 

Kirsten Vangsness: There’s just like those little teeny, tiny moments and the stuff that I’m the most proud of like I can’t even tell you like. It’s like, I mean, I couldn’t tell you the whole story that, like in the first season, first episode there’s this thing where Adam [Rodriguez] talks about heartburn, and like the way I had…I was relearning my line because I couldn’t figure it out. We were running lines, and then we had this running joke about heartburn that then it just it made us laugh so hard we were crying. Then, we kept coming up with different stories that then we told everybody else. But I’m just proud. I’m just so honored I get to be a part of it.

 

Q) Yeah, it’s a beautiful show and cast. What would you like to say to the fans and supporters of you and the work you continue to do on “Criminal Minds?”

 

Kirsten Vangsness: Oh, my gosh! I would like to say thank you. I would like to say the Penelope in me sees the Penelope in you because I really think that that’s where we shine is that I think that fans see themselves so like, “Oh, I’m a JJ” or “I want to date so and so,” or “Those two people together…” Like all those little combinations I love that people can see and like love that about that character. I want them to know that whatever it is that they see in that character that they love so much, it’s them. They’re just projecting it onto this 2-dimensional image they see on television. And I feel so special that I get to be part of that. So, I would say that I see you, and that that is what makes Garcia. I think that people projecting onto her that like it’s like a feedback loop, and I love that.