Mandy Patinkin ended his involvement with CBS’ Criminal Minds abruptly and without prior notice. The manner in which he left the show irked co-star Shemar Moore, who said that Patinkin should have forewarned them instead of just simply failing to show up at work one day and leaving everyone scrambling to find a way to deal with his sudden departure.
“If you needed to leave the show to kind of feel better about yourself, that’s fine,” Moore told reporters at last month’s press tour. “You want to be closer to your family, that’s fine. You want to go sing songs and travel, that’s fine. But give us a heads-up. Give us a warning.”
Although the reasons behind Patinkin’s exit remain vague, Shemar Moore believes that it is not due to any problems concerning his co-star’s health.
“He’s not in harm’s way, he’s fine, he just is not speaking to anybody,” Moore said. “There’s nothing wrong with Mandy, no. Mandy’s issues are his own personal issues.
“He was never comfortable as an actor. And this is a guy who won Tony Awards and all this other stuff. But when he would talk to me, he’s an emotional guy. Sometimes he was the strongest man in the world, the proudest man in the world, and sometimes he was very much like a little child and you almost got this sense that you had to take care of him. He felt safe around me, and I was flattered by that,” he continued.
Despite believing that Mandy Patinkin‘s departure from Criminal Minds is not health- related, Moore hinted the dark subject matter of the show greatly affected his co-star’s fragile psyche.
“The content is tough, but at the end of the day, I’m an actor who learns lines and I say my lines and then I distance myself from it and go back to my life,” Shemar Moore said. “[Patinkin] took it a little more personally.”
Thomas Gibson, who also appears on Criminal Minds, is disappointed over Patinkin’s exit as well, but is still optimistic about the show’s upcoming season.
“We look at this as a great opportunity to shake things up. This is certainly a disappointment to everyone, but I don’t think it’s a catastrophe,” he said.
-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Sun Media
(Image Courtesy of CBS)
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
