John Byrne meets Criminal Minds’ star Shemar Moore (aka Derek Morgan) on the show’s Hollywood set.
It’s taken a while, but we finally got our man. After several visits to the 'Criminal Minds’ set at Quixote Studios in Los Angeles, where we’ve met up with every member of the cast except Shemar Moore, this time around he was available for interview (for the first time since season two), thanks to a break for lunch during a hectic day’s shooting.
Looking as smart as he does on screen, the 40-year-old former model is wearing a grey hat, a white T-shirt, a black waistcoat, jeans and shoes. So does Shemar Moore share a style file with his character, Derek Morgan?
“I dress a bunch of different ways”, he says. “But Morgan is very simplified, and I do that on purpose. Morgan doesn't have as much fun as Shemar does. Morgan's a lot tougher than Shemar is. Shemar is tougher than he has to be. I can talk my way out of a fight. Morgan is looking for a fight.
“Morgan wears the same pair of jeans. He's got T-shirts and thermals; things like that. He's just a man's man. He's alpha. He's full-on alpha. I do that on purpose and make him a tough guy, but he has a vulnerability. He has compassion, those kinds of things. I didn't want Morgan's presence to be about what he had on or what he was wearing. I didn't want it to be a style thing, but more about his attitude and his personality and the whole thing. So I keep it very simple, just a pair of black jeans and change the shirt, and it worked. He dresses up when he has to.”
Before joining 'Criminal Minds' when the show began six years ago, Shemar Moore was known in the US for playing Malcolm Winters on the soap 'The Young and the Restless', from 1994 to 2002, and as host on the legendary music show 'Soul Train', from 1999 to 2003.
Back then, he was considered even more of a hunk, although he’s hardly lost that tag, if the number of pro-Shemar emails we get in the Guide office is any indication. But since taking on Derek Morgan, things have changed for Moore, who clearly doesn’t like being pigeonholed as just another pretty boy. He wanted to prove he also has considerable acting chops.
“I look at 'Criminal Minds', and it's been a blessing because it's such a dark, serious show, and the take on that for many years was that I was just a pretty boy with a six-pack, not very smart or kind of arrogant or kind of fluffy and not to be taken seriously”, he says. “So here, I've had an opportunity to work and to collaborate with a bunch of wonderful, talented actors, very smart people, very smart lighting and very dark material.
"I not only sent a message to my fans, but I wanted to send a message to the industry that I can handle myself in a very smart world. So I'm not flashing my six-pack. I'm not doing all those things that I was known to do in the soap opera world. So call it growth, call it maturity. You know, it's basically just this job has . . . changed the conversation that people are having in the industry about me. So it's opening doors that weren't open to me before.”
That’s not, of course, implying that he’s embarrassed by his past. Far from it. “I don't regret anything”, he insists. “I mean, without the soap, I wouldn't be here. I'm so grateful for the soap because I could have been a bartender.”
He does admit that it took him a while to develop his acting skills to a point where he can bring great authenticity to his 'Criminal Minds’ character. “I can't watch the first two years of my acting career”, he winces. “I just cringe because I was just scared to death. I had raw instincts. I was able to memorise material and say it as if I was having a conversation, but I didn't know what an arc was. I didn't have a process. But I was smart enough to know what I didn't know, and I got into class, I got a coach, and I did all these things.”
Developing an educational analogy, he adds that “'The Young and the Restless' was the place that got me in the game. It was a great place for me to train, and once I felt I outgrew that, I wanted to, you know, try something else that scared me. So I treat my career like school. 'The Young and Restless' was high school. 'Criminal Minds' is college.” He doesn’t see his current role as something definitive. “I'm just evolving”, he adds, “and I'm growing up, and so the more I grow up as a person, the more you'll see maturity as an actor.”
Acting, by its very nature, can be quite a self-absorbed discipline. You’ve got to look after yourself, hone your craft, and if everyone else in a cast does likewise, the project you’re on might just work.
That’s not to say that you won’t develop friendships and strong ties along the way. The cast of 'Criminal Minds' are famously good pals, and Shemar Moore is the biggest fan of co-star Kirsten Vangsness, who plays the colourful Penny Garcia. They’re great pals, on and off-screen. “I love her to death”, he says, offering a smile that shows off his impressively perfect teeth. “So a lot of what you see on the screen is just Shemar and Kirsten. That's my friend. She's the greatest. It's great all the way across.”
One of the many things that attracts him to Vansgness is that “she's the comedic one in the show. It's a very dark show. I go out to Starbucks and people go, ‘I love your show. I love your show’, and I say, ‘You love a dark show like that?’ ‘Oh, when you cut people up and murder people, I don't watch, but I love how smart it is, and I love you and Garcia’. But what I really respect about Kirsten is that she's a breath of fresh air in a very dark world. She can make you laugh.”
On a roll, he wants to put her in context. On the other side of the TV camera, even. “She's endearing, but I think she's all of you sitting at home. I think she's the consciousness of our show. So she's affected by Prentiss, Morgan, Hotch, Rossi, Reid. We're not allowed to get vulnerable. We do from time to time, but for the most part we have to stay stoic. We can't be vulnerable because then we can't do our job.
"Kirsten, her Garcia character, is able to tell some jokes, have some funny banter, also be the emotion of what's really going on and how someone like you [the viewer] would feel about it. So she's very good at walking that fine line of lightening it up a little bit for you, but still maintaining the drama.”
It’s not all a barrel of laughs with Kirsten in Shemar Moore’s world. Times are tough these days on a global scale, even for actors on a hit US show like 'Criminal Minds'.
Before a scene was shot this season, there was controversy as series regular AJ Cook, who played Jennifer Jareau (aka JJ), was let go, although she did appear in a couple of episodes to wrap up her character. Paget Brewster, who plays Emily Prentiss, has had her involvement curtailed, with her future in the show a cause of much debate among fans.
According to Moore, everyone’s future on 'Criminal Minds' is on the line. “To tell you the truth”, he explains, “this particular season, the sixth season, contracts are up. Things like that are going on, and things have happened. We lost AJ Cook. So we have to deal with that. So we don't know what the future holds for Prentiss's character. We really just don't.”
On the other side of the acting coin, new cast member Rachel Nichols – who replaced AJ Cook – has been made a cast regular. She made her debut as Ashley Seaver, a cadet at the FBI academy, who was brought in to help in a recent episode about a gated community.
“She's been great”, Moore says. “She jumped right in and jumped into the team.” Moore admits that “there's been a lot of politics” around the show’s set. “So the writers have had to adjust for the politics.” But the beat goes on for Moore’s character. “I really am just being tough guy Derek Morgan, big brother to the Reaper, just doing my normal routine, whatever the crime of the day is.”
