An Interview with Kirsten Vangsness (Penelope Garcia, Criminal Minds) Page 2

Q: I've heard you love doing theater, going forward is your plan to continue performing in both mediums?

Kirsten: "Yeah, that's my first love. Theater is the one thing any actor can do. It's so valuable in our society, it's the first place you see a germ of an idea that starts as a conversation and then gets made into a movie or a television show. It's really accessible to everybody. I'm a member of Theater NOTE in Hollywood. I wish we had bigger audiences; sometimes we have like 8 people in our audience. I'm in a play right now that we do every Christmas at my theater company. It's hard to juggle the two things, I try to make it work. I'm writing a play, I've written a couple of plays before when I couldn't get work as an actor."

Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you?
Kirsten: "I took acting because I was so shy. I had stopped speaking altogether when I was in eighth grade and my mom insisted that I take drama to help get me to talk to people. Until you get me around people I know, I'm really shy."

Q: Anything you'd like to say to the fans?
Kirsten: "Thank you for watching our experiment. I think it started out as this theory, a nuts and bolts kind of show and it's really spinning into its own little child, it's a toddler now, a crime show toddler. I'd like to thank them for watching it. It keeps getting better, it's so exciting. I'm so lucky to be a part of it all."