Quotes from Matthew Gray Gubler

I think I veered towards filmmaking because there's more of a sense of control in it. You're not waiting to be picked. That said, in film school I acted in probably 6,000 student films because no other filmmakers knew anyone who wanted to act. It was all a big beautiful snake eating its tail, progressing along the way.

I looked like a 'Super Mario Bros.' Goomba. It's arguably the ugliest haircut on the planet.

Literally, my first audition after 'The Life Aquatic' was for the 'Criminal Minds' pilot.

I studied directing prior to acting and I've done music videos and documentaries and things that were sort of well-received.

It'd be cool to chipmunk-ize "The Virgin Suicides" soundtrack. All this ethereal French music, I think that would be unique to listen to.

I'm a control freak, and anytime I direct something, I try to make it as homemade and handmade as possible. I feel like that's my favorite type of filmmaking, where you can see the seams, and it doesn't feel like a swiftly produced, whole seeky-eyed event.

With all comedy, you try to ground it in credibility and reality.

I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.

If you're lucky enough to find a weird - never let them go.

I really cite Walt Disney as teaching me everything I know. It sounds crazy, but I'm serious! In 'Bambi,' the mother dies, but you don't see the corpse. You see the father, the stag, come up and you see 'Bambi' alone, and that has so much more impact than seeing a mutilated deer.

I thank every bully I ever had because that's the only reason I'm here. I learned how to not be affected by it and triumph over it, and that made me - again, if I had any success whatsoever, it's because these people made fun of me.

I've taken magic lessons since I was five-years-old. When I was little I would wear a top hat and cape, and I'd get relentlessly beat up by jocks. That's why I don't care for sports.

My favourite actors have always been the character actors.

For whatever reason, all my friends are musical wizards and in great bands, but yeah, it really skipped over me. It's one art form that I can just sit back and appreciate and no have thoughts on. If I watch a movie, I always think, 'Oh, I'd have done this.' But with music, I can just sit back and think, 'All right, this is great!'

One day, I woke up, and I was on CBS in front of millions of people, and I'm like, 'Oh man, I don't know anything.' The only thing I'd ever technically studied was filmmaking.

If you just do a Google search and type in 'smoking' or 'lung cancer', you will be barraged with never ending facts and numbers, like how one in every three Americans is affected by lung disease and how COPD is the third leading cause of death and if you get lung cancer the odds are 95% that you will die.

Tisch has a great film program and a great acting program, but they are segregated; you don't really intertwine. My peers knew I liked acting, so they'd be like, 'Go get that guy Gubler. He'll be in your student film.' I was in the same building. I became their go-to guy. So I left NYU having been in probably one thousand short films.

I get really sad when people say, 'I'm no good. I haven't been cast in a pilot.' It doesn't mean you're not good; it just means someone hasn't seen you yet. It doesn't mean that in real life you're not the greatest actor.

I like haunted things.

My best advice to actors is if you love acting, do it every chance you get. Success does not mean success. All that matters is whether or not you're doing your best to entertain. The way this business works is all about luck and timing.

I love polite people, late September, weeping mortar, and my fantastic fands (fans/friends)

I love the holidays - any holiday - but Christmas has always been sort of special because I grew up reading Charles Dickens.

I would love to be on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I'd love to be on that. A lot of my favorite shows get canceled really early on. I liked 'Twin Peaks.' If I had a time machine I'd be in that.

I never imagined I would have one fan, and there seems to be a few. I just couldn't be happier that people seem to like what I'm doing and seem to respond to it. If they weren't there, I don't know what I'd be doing right now.