American actress and playwright Kirsten Vangsness joins to discuss her role as bespectacled tech kitten Penelope Garcia on the long-running CBS crime drama Criminal Minds.
Debbie Millman:
Penelope Grace Garcia is a survivor, a technical analyst of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. She has been shot, she’s been arrested, she has been jilted, she has been kidnapped all while helping to solve difficult cases. She’s also the only character who has been on every episode of the show and in all of the spinoffs of the Criminal Minds TV franchise. She’s played with heart and wit and great comic timing by the one and only Kirsten Vangsness. Kirsten is a stage actress who also sings. She’s written plays and TV episodes and starred in her own one woman shows. Penelope Grace Garcia is only the tip of the iceberg and I’m here to plumb some of those depths. Kirsten Vangsness, welcome to Design Matters.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Geez, thanks. Very exciting.
Debbie Millman:
It’s wonderful to have you here and I have a question that I’m really curious about as my opening inquiry. Is it true that you chose the name Fluffy as your confirmation name?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Absolutely true. I actually wrote it in the Book of Common Prayer in Orange Crown on top of Teresa, because I really desperately wanted to name a pet Fluffy, and that was far too pedestrian for my mother. So I was like, “Well, I’ll name myself.” And I did have this sort of round halo of fluffy hair. So it worked.
Debbie Millman:
You grew up behind the main street on-ramp of Highway 190 next to the Anderson Fence Company in Porterville, California.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And I understand that you had a crush on Harriet The Spy as you were growing up.
Kirsten Vangsness:
I did.
Debbie Millman:
Why Harriet The Spy?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Because she’s all the things. She’s got that wonderful androgyny and the glasses, the commitment to an outfit for the sake of how it made you feel. Not necessarily that the glasses worked or the… I can’t remember what else she had on her. The flashlight. I think the flashlight worked, but something like that and her dedication to writing and her intuitiveness and her just general chutzpah that I certainly didn’t have. I wished upon it, to have it when I was that age. And the writing, the journal writing and the observing of people. So, yeah. It was Simon Le Bon, Harriet The Spy and Kate Bush. Combine those, smush those into one being and that’s…
Debbie Millman:
Your trifecta?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You’re the daughter of elementary school teachers. Your father also sang opera and worked with the community theater and I understand that you and your sister spent a lot of time there, and by the time you were about seven, you began playing old ladies on this stage. So why the old ladies?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I was a weird kid. And people say that. A lot of people say like, “Oh, I was weird and I was bullied and I was strange looking.” I really, really was. It’s not hyperbolic. I’ve always shown how I’m feeling or what’s going on with me on my body and I grew up in a very chaotic household and I was storing information and experience and my own thoughts on my body. And as a result, I had a real weird posture. And I have this sister who is now an elementary school teacher, and she’s three and a half years older than me, but she’s shorter and she’s more of the Italian side of the family. So she has green eyes and she can tan naturally and she was sort of perky and bright.
So for instance, my dad would play Birdie in Bye-bye Birdie and my sister would play one of the teenagers who was crazy about the star, Bye-bye Birdie. And I would play one of the 70 year old women who would be like, “Why is he…” Or I would be one of the old ladies in Fiddler on the Roof or whatever, because my demeanor was such that I could… And I was so painfully shy. I just think the hunching over, it just fit really well because usually that part, you’re just peas and carroting in the corner. But I very quickly learned to love that environment very much, just the irreverencey of it all as an observer really then, the most in the shadows kind of observer that there could be. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Despite his interest in opera, your father didn’t take care of his voice. He didn’t have the career he wanted. He lost his job. He became a gambler and an alcoholic and the family ultimately had to exist on your mom’s paycheck. And you’ve said that being so afraid of the choices he made, made him cruel. And I thought that was such a kind and empathetic way of talking about someone that did really cruel things to you. I’m wondering, how you got to that place where you could have that insight and empathy?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh God, I’ve always been at that place. It’s really weird because my childhood, my growing up, all of that is so… It survived so much my fantasy life of it. And God, I can’t remember the name of that wonderful writer, psychologist, Gabor… Is it Gabor Mate? I might be messing up his name entirely, but he’s had a new book out and he talks about how children in the same family have completely different upbringings. I’ve always simultaneously hated my father. Deeply hated, wanted to murder him, and at the same time, loved him. I mean, I love him like a father. I didn’t have a father who did father things. I don’t have one of those. I don’t have that, but I remember an Amanda Palmer lyric where she says, “Fear makes you cruel.” I think the reason why I liked that lyric is because I’m like, yeah. So even when I was little… And I got told all the time when I was a kid, “You’re so much your dad, you’re so much your dad.”
And I didn’t understand that, but I was so close with him. I was the one that when my parents would fight when I was very small, I would come in and try to talk it through. So I felt like I knew him so much and because I unfortunately, spent time with him as a small child where I was way adultified, I knew him. I mean, I felt like I was a second wife and his therapist and a non-existent creature that extended outside of him that was for his purposes. And so, it’s not like I… It’s just there. The empathy or the whatever. I don’t know why, but I think I lucked out, out of my demeanor, out of the way my brain handled stuff. I know that people have every right to feel the way that they feel about their family members and people that have wronged them and I certainly have a lot of feelings about him, it’s just I don’t know why the second I got the opportunity to not be around him, I took it and… Meaning I moved into somebody else’s house when I was still a teenager.
I insisted on having friends around and the whole time being told I’m being ridiculous and nothing’s happening and you’re crazy. And the thing is, is that the people close to me in that situation that are part of my family, would still say that now. And we have to maintain this sort of… It’s hard, because they don’t like it to be real and I don’t always know if it is real, but if I behave it if it is and I take care of myself as if it is, life got much better. So I don’t know what to do and I hope I answered that question.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, I mean, it’s so interesting. Memory is such a strange and circuitous thing, and apparently every time you remember something, you’re remembering a memory.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Right.
Debbie Millman:
However, I do want to say having spent, I don’t know, the last couple of weeks, deeply researching your whole life and seeing everything you’ve done and… Your stories are really consistent, which really leads me to believe that they’re actually true.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Thank you, and I think that’s why I make things. I think that that’s part of… I’ll do this, I’ll make things and I’ll be doing some kind of performing, no one can take that ever away from me. You could pay me, you could not pay me, but I do it because it helps me process something. I mean, that’s one of the best things about art. That’s one of the things I know you always talk about on this, is that it’s so… That the ability that it has to take information that you can’t understand and alchemize it into something else is the only thing that really works.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I think that the people that don’t remember things the way that we do, especially when they’ve imprinted in us in such a really formative manner, just don’t remember it.
Kirsten Vangsness:
And it’s so fascinating because there are people in my family that remember things to the T and will tell me. “Remember when you were four and I was this age?” And it’s like, “I don’t remember that at all.” But all I know about all of that is I am not one of the people. There are people that say, “Oh, to be a child again and to be in the warm, embrace [inaudible 00:10:10].” You could not… I will never… I am terrified of it. During the pandemic, all I thought about was all the children out there that are alone in places they can’t get out of. It is not a safe space to me. And at the same time, I think it’s kept me really… It keeps all of me, that Madeleine L’Engle, “You’re every age you’ve ever been.” It’s kept all of my ages, they’re all very close to me because I feel a deep responsibility to show them where we go.
I don’t know. I feel like sometimes I’m so cringe and so earnest because somebody else could have some really shitty things happen to them and it’s like, here I am being like, “I think it’s really great and you can take care of them and show them all the good shit.” And that’s my experience and I don’t want to take away from other people’s experiences.
Debbie Millman:
Well, but I read that you weren’t ever allowed to shut a door in your house, so you had no privacy.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. And that’s, again, one of those things that I’m sure that [inaudible 00:11:10]
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, but you ended up losing the ability to relieve yourself for months and had to go to the doctor, which was then a re-traumatization of a body part that you were already getting trauma from.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
So there’s evidence right there.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Right?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Hospital records.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. Oh, yeah and I went to a pelvic floor physical therapist for years because I would punch people in the face if they were trying to touch me, even consensually. And the only way I could get by is if someone was non-consensually. I could somehow either manage… Yeah, but there was no privacy in my house. But then, there would be these wonderful periods of time where no one would be around and that was really precious to me. And that part, I was able-bodied and I don’t know, the ’80s and all the children went and opened your house up with a key and you were fine.
That actually felt really safe to me to just wander around a room, pace back and forth by myself, making up really dramatic stories. I loved that, but then whenever there were people around, yeah. There were no locks allowed to be… You could shut a door, but you can’t expect someone not to just come in. I was told multiple times that my clothes, my Christmas money I got, belonged to my father and he did that to all of us. I don’t want to speak for them and I want to be careful about that, but that was definitely my experience. Yeah, I don’t recommend that. That’s not a good form of parenting.
Debbie Millman:
Well, you said that scrambling around trying to manage the emotions of this one adult was so tumultuous, it became really hard for you to focus and it also made you be able to deescalate tense situations, made you feel valuable…
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
… and it’s a skill you still have today.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And do you think that that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, I think it’s both. I think it can be very good, but I also think it’s a place your value in it. I mean, I still do it, but I also… And I play this character that is also very, very good at that, but is feistier, I think, than I am, that can tolerate things in a different way than I can. I can see everything all happening at the same time and I appreciate that, especially the kind of job I have, because actors can be… This idea that we’re just sort of, I don’t know, myopically obsessed with ourselves, but when I’m in a room, it doesn’t matter where I am, I will find the people that are… “Why is that person in the corner? What just happened right there?” I can see everything happening at the same time and when used correctly, you’re one of the helpers. When used incorrectly, no. So it’s really important for me to always stay in a place of potency in my essence qualities so that I don’t… I’m not doing it from an icky place.
Debbie Millman:
You said that there became a point in your life where you spent a lot of time being Agatha Christie or Angela Lansbury, in your own life, in an effort to try and predict what might happen next in an effort to avoid it and I think it’s when we have to do that kind of sleuthing that we become hyper aware.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Did you feel that the abuse that you suffered was your fault?
Kirsten Vangsness:
No. I mean, the straight answer is no, but the magical thinking that happens… I deeply appreciate my magical thinking and I live in this body and this body is a really lovely place to be. I’ve made it a lovely place to be. It can be nightmare town, sure, but I have things that I really believe in that are batshit crazy. I really thought this through one time. I thought, “What if we go through these multiple lives and my dad loved me so much that he decided to be the super villain in my life to create this horrible stuff that I had to transcend, that I have transcended, that I have alchemized into other things?” And when I think about it that, I’m like, “Well, I guess I made it happen because I asked.” You know what I mean?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Kirsten Vangsness:
And that’s not true. That didn’t… But I refuse to believe that there is such a thing. I don’t want to give people… I don’t want to give anybody the power that there’s such a thing as evil. I don’t even… That’s the funny thing about this show I’m on is I don’t even buy it. I think that monstrous people act in monstrous ways that make other people act like monsters and behavior is despicable.
Behavior is not okay, but I just believe in radical responsibility so much, my own, and I’m sure that that’s a big flaw, but it also gets me through the day. So it’s like, is it my fault? No. Do I think about it all the time that I did? I was always so interested in what was going on and I always never wanted other people to be in the line of fire. And I have that flaw about me now too. And I don’t know if that’s me trying to center myself in the drama or whatever. I’ve gotten better about it, but I really hope I’m making sense because you’re really…
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. No, absolutely. I was trying to decide as you were talking and I’m listening, “Well, should we talk about Criminal Minds now?” But I want to wait because there’s so much more to talk about, but I will say that I want to put a pin in the notion of despicable behavior and what is it about those that have been treated despicably going one way or another.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And then, what a show Criminal Minds does for the people that try to rise above it.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Because I think there’s a place in our culture for that.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You started keeping a journal when you were in the fourth grade.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Mm-hmm.
Debbie Millman:
Were you writing stories? Were you recounting episodes from your life?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I was writing about things that were happening. I mean, I have a Snoopy journal that’s just the sweetest little Snoopy journal with a lock and whatever, and you open it up and it’s like, “My mom and dad are bitches. I’m going to kill everyone.” I mean, it is lewd. It’s terrible. My sister stole it one time and she wrote this very long diatribe. I counted how I felt. I’ve always felt like if I can write it down and I can see it on a piece of paper… Because my memory is so strange. And then to be… I’m going to say gaslighted growing up and being told like, “That’s not what happened. Kirsten, you lie.” You have to take that. When it gets told to you so much, you take that into your world. So now I just, “Oh, I lie. Kirsten’s a liar. Okay, got it. I’m just going to write in here what I want because it’s not going to hurt anybody and I can be as explicit as I need to be. And if I’m lying, okay.”
It gave me a place and I just think it’s so valuable for anybody. At first it’s a pain, but it’s like there is somebody there reflecting back eventually. At first, no, but eventually, there’s a witness, there’s a something and it… Ooh, I mean, it took me a bit. I mean, I was bananas until my… I mean, I was bad bananas for a while, but it’s turned around. It takes a bit. But yeah, it really helped.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, yeah. I felt that way too. I was bad bananas till I was about 40.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Okay. That makes me feel good. I was going to say…
Debbie Millman:
Maybe even into the 40s. [inaudible 00:19:32]
Kirsten Vangsness:
I was making some terrible decisions.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, yeah.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Some dangerous, terrible decisions. And to be sweet or to be nice or… I hate the word nice. To be kind or whatever, but then even in the background, in the shadow, having someone over here that I’m intimate with that knows I’m terrible. So that out in the world, I’m celebrated, but over here, this is who I really am and this is how I… And that split that I grew up with because in my house, it was so… You don’t share, and I couldn’t help but share. And that’s the other reason why the journal is very helpful is because there are no secrets. I’ve been told I’m a liar my whole life, and yet, I cannot keep things about me to myself. I’m compelled to share. So it’s a weird dichotomy and the journal helped.
Debbie Millman:
Well, it’s so interesting that you were writing so much, but you were also painfully shy. I know that by the time you entered eighth grade, you were so shy, you stopped talking.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And you did poorly in school. And by the time you went to Cerritos High School…
Kirsten Vangsness:
Uh-huh.
Debbie Millman:
… your mom gave you an ultimatum. You had to take shop or drama.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Right.
Debbie Millman:
Now, I find this so interesting. Why did she choose those particular topics?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Well, I think that getting me out of my shell, and I had already… Since I had done the community college and when I was in junior high in Porterville, I really did love drama class, but I was bullied. Thrown in trash cans and I was the girl that people invite… I got invited to one sleepover once and it was legitimately just, “This is the girl we’re going to terrorize.” It was relentless and it was slightly better than being at home, but I didn’t like it. You know what I mean? You don’t know when you’re going to get punched in the face and I would make it worse because I would say things like, “I’m like Gandhi, I’m a peacekeeper.” While you’re getting punched, or I would make jokes about it or whatever. And I would make… It would become more of a thing because I was so… I mean, I think I still am invested in being a little bit of a weirdo.
But really, I was so weird. And when we moved, we had moved and I was like, “I can’t take it.” And we moved to Cerritos and Cerritos was… I remember that people had money and there were girls in whole outfits in yellow. I thought, “How much money do you have to have that you have a whole outfit in the color yellow?” And I just decided to stop, so… It was very hard to pay attention in school and my parents were in tumultuous situations, so they’re not really paying attention and every person from themselves. But my mother is wonderful and was struggling in this relationship with a guy that I really think… She came from a place of, “You’re supposed to be with a man to…” For the girls to be in a stable… So I really think she was trying. I mean, I know she was trying. She was trying really hard, but I think that she has these moments, my whole life, where she’s just done these incredible things that someone else might be like, “What is that?”
It’s like she’s the perfect mom for me. And that was one of those things where she’s like, “You can do this or do this.” And I didn’t want to do shop because that seemed scary and drama seemed a different kind of scary. Shop seemed boring, scary and rules and drama just seemed like terrifying, but I would love to do it, but I’ve always had that thing of, “Oh, I’m not invited to that party.” And that seemed like, “Nah, no one wants me… I’m not the person that gets to go to that party.” And then, I went in class and our first two assignments, we didn’t have to talk and I got an A and I…
Debbie Millman:
It was pantomime, right?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. And I had never gotten an A on anything and just… I mean, teachers were always, “Oh, Kirsten’s really creative.” Or whatever and they liked me and all that, but just to get an A in something for just trolloping around in my imagination, that was… Yeah. And I was hooked.
Debbie Millman:
In 10th grade, you got the part of a heroin dealer in a school play called Juvie.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, I did.
Debbie Millman:
About a juvenile detention center and you’ve talked about how your teacher put Post-it notes all over the classroom before you went on stage. Why did she do that?
Kirsten Vangsness:
It builds you up. And it was quotes, [inaudible 00:24:00] quotes, all this, and it was… I mean, entering drama was like, “Oh, this is the place.” And I have the crush on my friend James, who I then eventually moved into his house and lived with him. My other best friend, Michael, who transitioned to nonphysical in ’96, but was just a genius and they were both in the play with me. And of course, in this version of Juvie, there was only a set of bars separating the male and the female… It’s binary, but in the juvenile detention center and she had one post-it, which… And all it said was, “Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.” And that was everything to me, because I think that part of my, “I’m not invited to the party.” Was like, “I love this thing so much. I don’t even know if I’m good enough or worthy enough.”
I mean, I still have that so deeply, that weird, impostery… It’s gross. But that gave me permission and I understood it. It was like, “Oh, that’s how I believe art is. It’s like I’m not special. Everybody’s special. There’s this big open space that it’s my job to keep as open as possible, but it’s got on it little roots sticking out and stuff from your life and my own stuff. And then, whatever that juice is that you create from comes pumping up from the earth through me and out my mouth or out my hands or whatever, it’s covered with my special sauce, but it’s not me that makes it special. It’s that…”
And that also, since I felt so gross, and I can go through that so much, the art isn’t gross and I get to be a part of it. And it loves me just like it loves everybody else and it gets to go through me and through everybody. That felt like the safest, wildest thing in the world. That’s what I serve forever.
Debbie Millman:
You won an award for your part in Juvie for outstanding cast member.
Kirsten Vangsness:
I did.
Debbie Millman:
And I believe you still have that award in your living room, right?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I absolutely do.
Debbie Millman:
Brass comedy and tragedy mask with a fake marble vase.
Kirsten Vangsness:
It’s true. I do.
Debbie Millman:
That’s when you knew you wanted to be involved in drama, theater…
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
… being an actor for the rest of your life, but you were also convinced that in order to do that, you would be a starving artist subsisting on cat food for the rest of your life.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yep. I was told, again, this wonderful thing by my mom. She was like, “You’re never going to make a living doing that. It’s literally impossible.” And I was like, “Yep.” I just knew and that was fine, but it’s so crazy because it was the thing I was good at. So I got a little $100 scholarship. I almost flunked out of high school and I got this scholarship, and I remember the kid, Paris Mada, who got a perfect score on the SAT was sitting next to me at the award ceremony and he said, “I really thought you were good in that play.” And I was like, “Paris Mada know… He’s like the smartest kid in school. What?” I got accolades for it. And then, I went to community college and went to college and was getting attention for this thing that I knew I was never going to be able to do it.
And then, I got an audition for a movie, and Mali Finn, this big casting director. Her daughter casts, I think, the Star Wars trilogy things now, but she cast Titanic and stuff. I got an audition with her at Paramount Studios. And I went in and I did my audition. And she said, “So what are you going to do when you graduate college?” And I was like, “I’m going to go be an actor.” I’m saying it very tentatively. And she says, “No. I mean, you’re not old enough to be a character actor. You’re not fat enough. You’re not young enough. You’re not pretty enough to be the main girl.” She listed off all these things and I walked out of the room and I was like… Well, for a moment, I felt like, “I can do this.” And then, I was like, “Nope, I absolutely can’t.” But it was the most freeing thing in the world.
I was like, “Oh, okay. Okay.” Because I think she ended up saying, “If you’re lucky, in 10-15 years, you’ll age into being a character actor.” She wasn’t wrong and it was very freeing to be like, “Okay, I just need to have 16 day jobs.” But every time I quit acting, I was miserable. So I always say to people, if you open that Pandora’s Box… We’re meant to create whatever it is and you have your day job, you have your thing, but you take care of that art because it’s not the person who’s on the TV show or on the Doritos commercial or whatever that’s the actor, it’s the person that’s sitting in their living room with their friends reading a play or at their community theater doing… It’s the art that matters. That is so valuable. So for me, that was more galvanizing and you cannot take this away from me. I just won’t get paid for it.
Debbie Millman:
You have written that you walked out of that audition with this woman and you heard a big cracking noise, which was your dreams dying.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
So what gave you the motivation to go on? I mean, waiting 15 years to age into being a character actress is not a lot of motivation.
Kirsten Vangsness:
It’s not… It shifted, because motivation is such a strange thing I think in general, even now. Something you love to do, a dream you love to do. And by the way, I lived down the street from where my dreams were cracking, in a place in town where I never thought I would be able to live. So it does happen, I think, but I just… Especially in Los Angeles, there’s such a huge disparate between the above the glass ceiling and below. It’s like, you can still make things. So the desire went from, “Oh, I’m going to be an actor and make money doing this.” To, “I’m going to be an actor.” So that’s not stopping me from auditioning for every play I can think of or you know what I mean? Saying yes to things. That didn’t stop me from doing that and that’s what I wanted.
And it was freeing because I’ve always been terrible at schmoozing. I’m terrible spelling correctly on my resume, all of that stuff, so it took that off and I just went toward creating. That’s what I did. And yes, it’s terrifying because you’re like, “How am I going to pay rent?” You know what I mean? I lived in a $500 a month guest house that I could not afford and never made my rent, but I did it and I was happy. And that’s one of the other things I always think about. “What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen if you go after that thing you want?” And everyone can say like, “Oh, have you met Kirsten? She’s 95 and she’s never become a famous actress, but gosh, is she happy.” I just didn’t even think about it, how to get there. I just created stuff.
Debbie Millman:
Does this agent or audition person know about your career now?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, I think Mali Finn transitioned to nonphysical, but I do… Her ex-husband was one of the teachers at Cal State Fullerton and it is really strange because now, everybody at my old schools and stuff like that, it’s like, “Oh, Kirsten.” And it’s nice. I mean, when I was in college, I definitely felt like I was getting… And in high school, I felt like I was getting accolades for what I did from teachers and stuff like that. It is funny when people treat you differently.
And like I said, I remember all the ages. I don’t hold grudges or anything like that, it’s just I’m very aware of how fickle all that is and whatever and this whole thing is so wonderful to get paid to do the thing I love. There’s parts of it though that are strange, like that, where everybody likes you. A lot of people did not like me. I was not wanted in the room, so it’s very strange and I still don’t always know that I’m wanted. And now, it’s such bullshit because I think it’s so part of my personality that I think I’ve decided that it’s part of my charm. So, oh my God, what would happen if I actually thought I was wanted in places? And then, I wouldn’t be… It’s a whole fucking mind trip.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, no. I know that too. I feel like if I ever really felt the way I know other people feel about me, people that love me, I think I’d be intolerable.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, I worry about that too.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Maybe we can make a pact.
Debbie Millman:
That sounds good.
Kirsten Vangsness:
I’ll make a pact with you.
Debbie Millman:
I will absolutely do that with you. Absolutely. So you talked about all of these other jobs you got, so after you graduated with a 4.0 average from college.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Uh-huh and I almost flunked out of… [inaudible 00:33:03]
Debbie Millman:
And afterwards, you got many different jobs and this is just some of what I found. You worked at a group home with kids that couldn’t succeed in foster care. You worked at a nature center. You were a substitute teacher at a public school. You were a bank teller, a grant writer, a personal assistant, and an animal feeder at the zoo.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Uh-huh.
Debbie Millman:
What was…
Kirsten Vangsness:
I was also… I worked at a murder mystery dinner theater. I taught children how to babysit and how to not smoke while I was a smoker for five minutes. I worked at… Oh, you said banker. There’s other ones, but those are… Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Which was your most favorite and which was your least?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Most favorite would definitely be substitute teacher or working at the group home. Both of those were… The group home was so interesting because it was before… Now you actually need a degree to do that, but the law was such… It really taught me a lot about my own childhood and to interface with kids and help them and it helped me. And I found that I then took that and then I went into substitute teaching with this superpower where I’m going to like you and I’m not going to like your behavior. I’m not going to shame you, but I will absolutely do what I say.
So if I give you a warning and I tell you something and you do it, I will absolutely do… So kids really trusted me, and I had that real Mary Poppins kind of thing. So I loved that. And the job I hated the most would be, I was a banker… A banker. I worked as a bank teller. I was not a banker. And I had one outfit that I got from Marshalls that fit me, that looked official and I would wear it almost every day and I would consistently be over or under by 10 grand, easily.
Debbie Millman:
Oh my God.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Easily, just every day. And then, I would get in trouble and then, I would panic. So that was probably my least favorite job.
Debbie Millman:
Ooh.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
While still working at all your day jobs, you got a role in the 1998 film, Sometimes Santa’s Got To Get Whacked and a role in the science fiction television sitcom, Phil Of The Future. And you were also doing improv shows in Anaheim Hills. And then, you started to watch all your friends that were acting majors in college go get real jobs. So they started to quit or they were getting real acting?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. No, people start realizing like, “Oh, this acting thing isn’t paying.” Or whatever, so they get another job. And then you’ve got some people that do book work and stuff and I was having a real hard time because I was living in Anaheim. I was living more like in Orange County, like Long Beach, and I was driving up to sometimes do plays in LA, sometimes do theater in Orange County, just wherever I could do it, I was doing it. And I would be around people and someone book a job on, I don’t know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Book a job on a commercial. And I’d be like, “They’re not even that great.” Or sometimes it would be, I’d be like, “Why are they… How come I can’t…” Like, because I would be told, “You’re very good at this.”
And I would win… We would do these monologue festivals at one of the theater companies I was in where you’d get $50 if you won, and it was $50 to do it. So I could do it. I could win every time, then take the money and do it again to meet casting people and stuff, but I couldn’t book anything. And I realized one day. I was like, “Oh my gosh, they believe that they have the right to be there and be in the room, whether they’re the best person for it or not. It’s two different skills. That’s its own skillset and I don’t have it at all and I don’t know if I ever will.”
But that was amazing. And then, also coming to terms with the fact that this thing I love so much, the idea of getting paid for it or to be responsible for a certain thing, that that was a definite… That’s how I was getting in my own way. And this is where, I mean, yes, it sucks and probably is dumb to say that everything is my fault. However, the radical responsibility aspect of it where you go, “Oh, this is what I’m doing wrong.” And attacking that. For me, it’s a more active way to live than saying, “Oh, it’s because Hollywood doesn’t understand me.” It was like, “Oh, this is what I’m doing wrong.” And I kind of got into either, “Well, okay. I guess I don’t know how to do that and maybe I’ll learn.” But that was very eye-opening to me.
Debbie Millman:
So what do you mean by radical responsibility?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I mean, what I wanted to say is it’s all my fault, but that’s probably not the right way to say it. I mean that I have this universe in here that’s mine. This is mine. Like I tell my nieces when they were in high school and they do stuff that I’d think, “You’re not going to like that you did that in a few years.” I would say, “Look…” One of my nieces, her names is Lindsay. I was like, “It’s Lindsay town, population one, and you’re the mayor and you’re the constituents and you’re everything.”
So that’s how I feel about me, because I really… I had my own way of doing things growing up. There was nobody out there advocating in a way I wanted them to. I’ve figured it all out from just in me, population me and a lot of times, I felt like everything was my fault. So if it’s all my fault, it’s also… Well, I guess I should work on that. I’m going through it in real time right now. I guess I should work on the… I did it too, but I like to think that if it’s my universe and I take responsibility for everything, it makes me feel more powerful.
I read this book one time and I’m now pals with him, called The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix, and he talks about upper limiting and your happiness threshold and I don’t want to give anything away because you’re nodding, so you know what I’m talking about. I want everyone to go get that book and read it, but that. That kind of, “What’s so wrong with thinking that I made it all happen?” It’s worked for me, and look, it’s completely insane, but it works for me.
And I’m not trying to say that it works for everybody, but that kind of radical responsibility of it’s up to me to take care of this universe and anything that goes on with me, I’m going to assume that I chose… This moment that’s happening right now, I’m going to act like I chose it myself. You know what I mean? That’s an Eckhart Tolle quote, but I’m going to act like this is… And I think that that’s what I mean by it.
Debbie Millman:
It’s so interesting because I vacillate between thinking that everything is my fault and thinking that nothing is my fault.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yes. Oh, I think I absolutely do too. But look, we’re doing this interview and you’re going to ask me questions and that persona, which I do think is me most of the time, is going to come out and I’m going to be the upstanding girl who says radical responsibility. And when I’m not here, I’m going to think… Because also, radical responsibility means I’m responsible for how much cake I eat or whatever. And I like to think that it’s not fair and that other people get to eat more cake than… I don’t know. You know what I mean? So it’s not true. It’s what I want. It’s my religion, a part of my religion of choice.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. I think I want to be the girl with the most cake, but I don’t want to gain any weight when I eat it.
Kirsten Vangsness:
That’s right. That’s the lost line of that Hole [inaudible 00:40:42] song. Right there. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Let’s get Courtney on the line.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
When you were 33 years old, you got a call from a friend who told you about a role for a scene in a television pilot called Quantico. And you were asked to read for a part for a character named Garcia, which was originally written for a young Latino man. What made your friend call you?
Kirsten Vangsness:
So I had done a lot of theater, as I said, and a friend of mine, Gina Garcia Sharp, called me and said, “Do you want to come in for this?” She was working for the casting director, and she was like, “You’re never going to get this part.” But she had been… Wonderful actor and working on the other side of the table to figure out how does this work? So your job also, being an associate like that, is to bring in other actors that to you know to be like… Just to be like, “Look, I know good actors.” So the idea of, come in, make my friend look good, very freeing. That’s what she needed and they needed these… It was very last minute because they realized the show, they were shooting the pilot. They had already cast the guy, they had filmed him and then realized the show’s too guy heavy, we only have one woman. We need a woman right there. So she called.
Now, this is when I was 33. I’m now 50, so do the math. And we need to talk about the elephant in the room, that a Norwegian girl would never be playing Penelope Garcia if it was happening now and that’s the correct thing. Am I super grateful for it and all of that? Absolutely. But I am aware of the benefits that White privilege has bestowed upon me, and I want to say that out loud. So I went in and go make my friend look good and say these two lines, and then you’re cast in this pilot and you’re going to be on it for two seconds. And they flew me to Canada and I had to find my birth certificate because I had never been out of the country and I was terrified and I go in this room and I memorize my lines.
It’s this technical stuff. They say, “Bring your own clothes.” I’m a size… I’m somewhere between a size 12 and a size 16. And that is a weird, magical unknown size in Hollywood. They think zero or 22. It’s like the middle part doesn’t exist. So I brought in my own clothes and I didn’t have a suit. I didn’t have anything. They were like, “What is these?” And I dressed like a space pirate. And so, then they put me in a green sweater and they sat me down and they said, “Say these words.” And they, “Do you know who Shemar Moore is?” “No, I have no…” “He’s very cute. You’re talking to him.” And I was scared out of my mind and I said the words and I remember the director coming over and saying, “Could you be funny?” And, “Yes, I can be funny.” Again, I’m getting paid for the thing I love and I do it and I think I was…
I don’t remember what happened. And then, that was supposed to be it. And I remember when I got done, I shook the hand of the writer, and as I was holding his hand and this is the… I don’t do these things as much anymore, but this is things I have to train out of myself. I grabbed his hand as I was shaking his hand and I put it to my own forehead. And then, I proceeded to thunk my own forehead and say repeatedly, “Did I butcher your words? Did I butcher your words?” And then he said… He patted my hand and he said, “We’ll see you back in LA.” I thought, “Oh, I don’t know what that means.” And then, a few months later, they did a second episode and they asked me to come for the second episode. And then, I did the second episode. And then, I tested really well, apparently, and I got to keep going. I actually have been in all Criminal Minds episodes except episode five.
Debbie Millman:
Oh.
Kirsten Vangsness:
The first season.
Debbie Millman:
I didn’t realize that.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people don’t. I think they mentioned me in that, but when I wasn’t on episode five, I was like, “Oh.” What’s funny is my mom and my sister had planned an intervention for me. They were going to sit me down. They had got a hotel room in Ohai, I remember they were spending this money to get this hotel room, and they told me, it was a pre-tell intervention. “We’re going to tell you you need to quit acting. You need to quit acting.” And I had to call them and say, “I got this job.” And they were like, “You have to cancel. You have to say no. Kirsten, you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep lying to yourself.” I said, “No, no. This is a real job. I’m taking it.” And I went and I did it and this was the job that it was.
Debbie Millman:
So Garcia the Latino man became Penelope Garcia, because the TV executives thought the pilot didn’t have enough female characters.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Mm-hmm.
Debbie Millman:
What did you say in those two lines to get them to… I mean, you weren’t even in any kind of interesting attire to…
Kirsten Vangsness:
No, and I tested… I remember them saying, there’s these knobs. They have people watch it. And then, they said that my knob got turned as much, if not more than Mandy’s, Mandy Patinkin. It was like 100%. And my only answer is that… I don’t know. I just think I was different looking than what people were used to seeing and maybe that was it. Also, they paired me with someone very traditionally attractive. And I’m not trying to say anything about myself. I’m saying that usually someone traditionally attractive… I think more of a size of a woman. We tell these stories that men are attracted to women that are much smaller than them and that is a lie. And so, I think that maybe that shown that the sizes of people can be diverse and attraction can be diverse, that people really took to that.
And me and Shemar, when we shot that second episode, we had a scene together. And even before, when we were in the table read, we were joking around. And that joking around, one of the writers heard, and they ended up putting it in the script. And then, we were in that second episode together with these lines that were very flirty and we both realized we have so much chemistry and we get along just weirdly well. Not weirdly, it was just like, we don’t know each other and it was like we just knew each other. And that, I think, helped me keep that job because he’s so charismatic on screen, and I got to be his necessary thing and…
Debbie Millman:
Lois Lane to his Superman.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. And he really treated me like that, which is, I think the thing that’s super valuable about this. It was a real, genuine, not placating, not anything like that. It’s a real thing and that was… I think, was super great. And I think that that’s what kept me on the show. It was the mix of that and… They did borrow from me, meaning the costume designer, BJ Rogers did a bang up job of that, and that was a lot of her, but she was originally putting me in one kind of thing, and then the writers would see me go out of my dressing room and like, “Can she wear that?”
And so, they started borrowing some of my clothes. And then, she was meanwhile creating it. And then, I was hoping that I got to keep the job. So I kept leaving props on her desk, which by the end and now on the show, is a living space.
I put things there that fans have given me when they come to see plays, homemade pens, all kinds of things. So it was like I thought, “Well, if they fire me, I’m going to have to come back and get all this stuff back.” So it was a job security kind of a thing. But I think that that mix of… I’m a very do it yourself person. Plays I write, things I do, I like to do it all myself. So I put that on that too, because at first, they didn’t give her much and I could see who she could be. And then, they let me keep making her.
Debbie Millman:
You really created her though, in so many ways.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You brought her to life.
Kirsten Vangsness:
I mean, I think what’s so great about it is she’s like a lesson in yes, and because… The writers write something, I’m like, “Oh, okay. Okay. So that’s true now. Oh, that’s true now.” But I would come in and I would like, “I’m going to change this line and I’m going to put it like this.” Or “I’m going to make it like this.” And I’m a theater girl, so I can do something in one take. So they come in and they prepare for like, “Okay, Kirsten’s got to do two pages of exposition. This is going to take us two hours.” And I’d pop it out in one take and we’d be done. And then I would say, “Can I say it this other way that I memorized it? Because I added this word.” They’d be, “That word’s not even a real word, Kirsten.” “Yeah, but…”
Or me and Shemar would call each other and be like, “Okay, if you say this, I’m going to say this.” We’d rehearse our scenes on the phone, and then I’d come in and be like, “No, I already talked to him and he said I could do this.” So they were yes, anding me. I was yes, anding them. And then, she just blossomed into this thing. And I’m quite honored that I get to be her guardian because I think she’s super special.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. She has become really a archetype in every criminal procedural. There’s always a really unusual, edgy, genius, subversive character now.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And it’s all based on this.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. And when you think about it, it’s Moneypenny… What was it? Mitchell or whatever from Alias. Abby from NCIS. But I was definitely her… She was definitely part of that whole brainiac…
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, but Moneypenny was traditional.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Exactly, but I feel like that was the closest they would allow us to get, and then you go into this, which is this woman who is truly her own thing and… She’s her own thing and no one is… And what I love is I’ve heard that behavioral analysts at Quantico felt like they could be a little more who they wanted to be because she was like that. And I don’t know anything about computer analytics, so I was so happy that they felt as seen as they did, because that’s always been really important to me. And I also think it’s really important to highlight women who can do those kinds of things.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I mean, that’s also what I appreciate so much about how you and Shemar engaged with each other, because he was so clearly in awe of your brilliance and your beauty that it’s showed an entire world that women don’t only have to look a certain way or be a certain way to be interesting to the opposite sex.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, absolutely. And for me, I had to learn that in real time. I remember my dad had gotten sick. I mean, it sounds bad, but he was always dying. And so, he used to be like, oh, he’s dying and go to the hospital and whatever and it was one of those times, it was like second episode, third episode. And I had been at the hospital and whatever and I hadn’t gotten any sleep and I had stayed at a friend’s house. I had to be at work the next day and I was late. And I mean, if you ask anybody at work, I’ve been on 320 something episodes, I’ve been late twice. And so, I was late. And I remember, because they were concerned. I was new to the job and they were not happy that I was late and I didn’t want to tell them what was going on.
And so, I went and I did my job as best as I could. And I remember driving home and I was like, “I’m at choice right now. You can be the girl that you always have been who sabotages everything, who doesn’t believe that you have the right to be here or you can just fucking pretend that you’re this girl. This girl that this Shemar dude thinks is hot. You can just pretend. Who cares?” And I was like, “No, I can’t because I’m still the girl who lives in this car who can’t keep it clean.” I was like, “You’re just going to be that girl. There’s never going to be a moment that I’m going to be outside my body and get to observe and be like, ‘Whoa, she’s cool.’ I’m never going to have that.”
And it was a little sad, but then it was like, “Okay.” And then, I just was able to go in there and play an extended game of pretend, which I will argue, it makes your life, because at a certain point, that pretend becomes real and if that’s what you got, why not? What’s the harm?
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. I’ve been a long, longtime fan of the show, as is my wife, and we also love Law and Order SVU. And over the years when people ask, “What are your favorite TV shows?” And I’ve always said, “Criminal Minds and Law and Order SVU.” And there have been times where I actually have said that my childhood was an episode of Criminal Minds and SVU. And people then question, “Why do you like these shows so much?” They don’t seem to get it. “Why do you want to keep triggering yourself and why do you want to keep doing something that’s going to make you feel bad again?” And I’m like, “No, it’s the opposite. Seeing the bad guys always get caught on these shows, seeing justice be done. I go to sleep feeling safer.” And I’m wondering if that’s something that you’ve heard from other folks.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, yeah. Joe Mantegna just sent us… And I mean, look, it’s the greatest job in the world. I need to say that out loud. I work with people that are genuinely my family. As I was driving here, I was getting 12 text… When my phone lights up and it’s like 47 text messages. I’m like, “Oh, Paget or Aisha or Joe…” We’re very close. So Joe just got a thing from somebody who was in a harrowing, dangerous situation and actually used things that he learned from the show in this moment. And that’s happened more than a few times. And yes, I definitely feel that. For me to be in it and doing it is where I draw the line. It’s hard for me to watch. I have such a big imagination that I will actually think my friends are in trouble. There’s a part of my nervous system that doesn’t get it.
But I agree with you. I mean, it’s just by the grace of God that my NeuroNet made choices. Yes, I would like to think it’s because of some things that I did too, but I interface sometimes because of my life with someone who is very borderline and had a very similar tumultuous upbringing, and they’re unpleasant and unhappy and oh, all of that. And you’re like, by the grace of God, my brain was able to turn things off or whatever, and I’ve got my own bag of rocks. I’m not saying that, but that to me is always… There are monsters. There are people who behave monstrously and that’s the other thing I love about being Penelope is Penelope…
And I definitely gave that to her. There are rules to Penelope that I adhere to. I have never on that show, if they wrote… Anything violent that they’ve unintentionally or on purpose sexualized, Penelope’s not doing it. I will take that line out. I will, whatever. And they’ve always been very respectful about things like that, that she sees the evil behavior and not the evil person. That she maintains that people, all of us were babies and all of us had horrible… You know what I mean? And that you have to be able to see all of the thing. And I think that that makes her even more tenacious about, “No, you can’t do that.” I appreciate that about her.
Debbie Millman:
Well, one other thing that I really appreciate is that they have, over the years, given Penelope a sex life.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah. She was the first person actually who slept with anybody on the show. And she’s made some real doozies of choices and it’s been really good for me. It was strange because I came out right before I got the job and I was like, “Okay, this is part of the thing that I need to handle.” Is that I didn’t know I was gay and I fell in love with this woman and I was madly in love and that was that. And I thought, “Oh, I’ve figured it all out.” And then, I was doing this show and it was really weird because everyone’s like, “Oh, Shemar is so cute.” Whatever. And that was the other reason I was like, “Oh, I’m positively gay because I love him, but I don’t have any… Nope. Who I’m going home with is all I want. I don’t… Nope, nope. Don’t want any of these people. I’m around all these very good-looking people. Nope, just want this.”
Everything seemed to line up. It all made sense. And the show actually, through time of [inaudible 00:56:53] And then, Garcia. Garcia is absolutely queer and I’ve always known that, but I was like, “Oh, but she’s not gay.” And then, to come full circle and be like, “Oh wait, no. Okay. I also want to go out with men sometimes and then women, so okay.” Now, I’m sticking with this one heteronormative relationship and I’m a queer person and I have come to peace with that. Then I get to watch Garcia be that. She is up there doing stuff that I’m sometimes running toward that nobody even knows I’ve built this bible for her, but I know and it informs choices, you know what I mean? And the entire time, I had an impeach the motherfucker already sticker in her office that no one knew about. And then anytime someone find out, I would get a new one and put it up. That whole desk has been nothing but just a progressive manual of anti-racism [inaudible 00:57:54]. It’s a whole thing. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
In addition to acting in all but one of the episodes of the entire series, including the new series that’s recently come back, thank goodness, you have also co-written five of them, including the first series finale, which was incredible. What first inspired you to try your hand at writing for the show?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I thought it was an impossible feat and we were in contract negotiations, which are a fascinating thing where your people say, “They want this much.” And then, the studio says, “We’ll give them this much.” So we were going through that and look, I’ll do this for free. I don’t care. However, it was interesting to me that we had gotten to a point that I was… Because people had gone and come back, there were people that were more senior than me, but they had gone and come back. So in that going and coming back, I was more senior, so I had become the most senior female in the room temporarily. And why were we not getting paid as much as the men? So this was a… I was like, “If someone can tell me… Now, I get it for me because this is the first job I’ve had, but that person has had all these other jobs and this person has all these other jobs. So you need to explain that to me.”
And they weren’t giving me answers and I was to the point that I was like, I just want to conversate. Just ABC, CBS, just call me up and we can just talk about it. And once you tell me why, then maybe… But I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. I’m not trying to be greedy. I’ll do this for… But that don’t make no sense, because the only thing I can see that’s different is organs. But again, if one of the other two women who had way more work under their belt, they were getting paid more, I could wrap my head around that, but I couldn’t and I have been very vocal about it and they kept trying to eek it up and try to please me.
And I was like, “No, you don’t seem to understand. You’re going to pay them as much as me, and that’s the end of this…” They didn’t seem to get it. And then, they bumped it… I got my way, but not exactly. I was going to say yes, but my boss called me and she said, “What do you think about writing, co-writing an episode with me?” And she’s like, “I can do that. I don’t think they’re going to go any farther in this, but I can do that.” And I was like, “Okay.” And so, I did and I was terrified out of my mind and I’m not… My first drafts of things are literally Rossi, that’s the name of a character in a show. They’ll write Rossi and then walks in and says something relevant. The next character, they say something to agree with him. Third character, says something completely opposite to disagree that’s an anecdote about a killer.
I would write out like that and then fill it in. I’m good though at writing scenes that had to do with interpersonal stuff and Erica knew that about me. So we just would flip. I’d write an act, she’d write an act, and then we’d swap. And then, she’d clean mine up and then hers are perfect. So I’d add a joke or something like that, but that’s how we’ve done it. But she’s one of my dearest friends. She’s just a lovely human being who happens to be brilliant and have just the most creatively disturbing ideas to write these episodes about. So we talk about our families and I’ve told her all my relationship problems. I’ve braided her hair so many times. We just sit and talk and eat potato chips and write these episodes. So it’s just an exercise in hanging out. And then, somehow or another, we’ve popped these episodes out that I’m really happy that my name is lucky enough to be on them.
Debbie Millman:
Well, you’ve often referred to your work on Criminal Minds as your fancy day job, and I want to talk about some of the work you do when you’re not doing your fancy day job. Here are just a few of the things that you’ve made. This is a bit of a monologue that I’m going to make now. You were the star and executive producer of the film Noir spoof, Kill Me Deadly in 2007. You starred in the West Coast premiere of Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig at the Geffen Playhouse, for which you received a best actress Garland Award. You received another Ovation best actress nod for the show. Everything You Touch at Boston Court, an LA Weekly best playwright of the year nomination for your production of Potential Space and won the Los Angeles Drama Circle best comedic actress.
You wrote a one person show titled Mess, which by the way, Neil Gaiman has called his favorite one person show ever, which you performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was greeted with five star reviews and sold out shows. You also created a two season show on YouTube during COVID titled, Kirsten’s Agenda. Congratulations on all of this work as well as some of the other work I haven’t gotten to yet, which we’re going to talk about now. Okay?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah, that sounds… When you put it in a list like that, I’m like, “Oh, she’s done things.”
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. Well, I want to talk about your one woman show, Mess. It’s a very intense, beautiful, I think autobiographical show with a lot of trauma and vulnerability and emotion. What was your motivation for doing this one woman show and how did you pull it off? How did you put it all together?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I am a bit of a mess. I’ve had to embrace that about myself. I need to see everything out. So things will be out a lot. I talk in a very circuitous way. I’m a little clumsy and I’m a member of a theater company in Los Angeles called Theater of Note. And when the Hollywood Fringe Festival came around years ago, pre Criminal Minds, I decided I was going to write a show and have it in the Fringe. And at first, it was just me reading some stuff from my journal. And then, the next year I did it again. I called it Mess again, and I wrote a song, the song [inaudible 01:03:55] and then, I put other things in it. And then, I did it again the next year and I put other things in it. So it’s been this little living document. The thing that’s important to me about it and why I needed to write it and whatever, I have this belief that time happens at the same time. And this is another thing that gets me through the day. I like to think that if we can be as gentle and good to ourselves now, that we can go back and we can show all those little parts that didn’t get it, that we can heal that timeline.
I mean, wouldn’t it be amazing if then we could heal the timeline back and generations and stuff like that? I don’t know if it’s true, gets me through the day. And also, I had a lot of anxiety growing up and I still do sometimes about falling asleep and death and just the magical realism in the good and bad ways that invade my mind. And it was a way for me to work on that. And then, in 2016 when the election happened, I really didn’t understand why that happened and I had so much pain about it and I was like, “Don’t all of us… Isn’t there something common?”
And so then, it became this pursuit to me, that play. I wanted to show that play in places that… So I went to Alabama and I did it. I found a theater there and I was like, “I’m going to send you this play. This is the play I want to do. I’ll give you all the profits and I’ll donate to a public school around there.” And it was deeply in the red part of… And I did it and it’s a lot about dealing with the external, the fear that’s out here and the bad that’s out here, and understanding that my inside contains the monster, right? And the monster’s out here because I made it happen. So part of that 2016 thing for me was like, “I made this happen through my own ignorance, through my own not participating, through my own ways that I beat myself up on the inside. I’ve allowed that to happen outside.”
It was so cool to go into this environment, bikers, Jews for Jesus bikers and stuff, that watched it, that were like, “I love this show.” You’re like, “Oh, I know we voted for different people, but we have something…” And it proved this idea to me that, oh, we have all these broken parents and we’re all figuring out different ways of dealing with them. And some of our ways was like, “No, let’s make him run the country because this time, we’ll do it right.”
Or something. I don’t know. So that’s what it became. And then, it’s one of those things, I haven’t done it now in a few years, but I will probably pick it up again and do it again, because every time I do it, it’s clunky. I sent you a thing of… I recorded, I did the best I could and every time I get a little braver and I can step outside of it and try it again, whenever I’ve done it, I’ve only done it in small spaces and it feels like we did something together. The room did something together. And to me, that’s one of the most valuable things to me about making art. I think it’s that thing of being a kid and feeling like no one sees me and no one likes me. I see all of this and I know you look at me like this now, but I’m not. You know what I mean? And if you feel like how I did, we’re all the same thing. And so, I love that.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, you start the show with a song. You get your audience to sing in full throated voices. These are the lyrics, “And we all are a mess, I guess. And we all are a mess, I guess. And we cover up our mess with stuff and we act like we’re totally cool.”
Kirsten Vangsness:
That’s true.
Debbie Millman:
At three years old, you experienced sexual trauma and in the play you state, “There is just me inside me when it happens. Some dirty mark that you can make go away.” Do you still feel that way?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Sometimes. I used to feel that way all the time because I kept it so secret. And I think sometimes, I wished I just knew… I wish everybody knew or I wish it was very specific, because I’d lost caring how covert or over it was. I know it was and I’ve gone around in my head like, “Oh, I’m so sensitive. So probably what I did is I probably read his mind. He was probably thinking something bad around me. And then, so it’s my fault.” All of that. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
Kirsten Vangsness:
It just really doesn’t matter. I do know that that has always been… I’ve always just felt like me. When something like that happens in your life, I think that whatever higher self angel person that lives inside of you, she just fucking shows up, and whether she can help you or not, you have this moment where you’re like, “I’ve just always felt like me.” I’ve never felt like I’m a grownup. And that was the three-year-old, because the three-year-old was in a grownup situation where she had to just be like, “Okay, there’s some things happening and I don’t know what.”
So one of the things that I’m able to do is I’m very good buddies with my shame. People can either severely dislike me because they have a hard time with their own shame or I can feel very dear to them. On top of the fact that I am [inaudible 01:09:13] of a TV show where I always save the day. That’s why I’m very used to people coming up to me at airports and things and just embracing my body because they have to. You know what I mean? And it’s like it’s a little like, “Whoa.” Also, I think it’s because I always feel like, “I’m a little gross, but I’m going to do that anyway. I’m a little gross, but I’m going to do it anyway.” There’s always that thing that’s in there that I’m like, “Ah.” And you probably know that I am… I tried to, and maybe I’m not for the next five minutes [inaudible 01:09:45].
Debbie Millman:
But I think we all are at the same time.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
That’s what we all are. Yeah. You say that some people see Mess and they find it heartbreaking and some people see it and they find it hilarious, but it seems like at another time, you said that your favorite things to make are things that are funny but also hurt a little bit. And so, I’m wondering, what is it about that combination that intrigues you? Funny and heartbreaking.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, I think that the terrible is the funniest, right? I mean, I make jokes… I mean, the most irreverent things is the things that you need to make jokes about. Again, I’m going to quote somebody, but there’s a moment in a Live Indigo Girls concert where Emily Sailors says, “You have to laugh about it because you’d cry your eyes out if you didn’t.”
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. You also wrote a play called Cleo, Theo & Wu, which has been described as a feminist historical space romp musical, and it is about how we are only as powerful as the least privileged among us, how feminine energy gets attacked and how we don’t give ourselves permission to have righteous rage. But time travel is also a part of Cleo, Theo & Wu. It’s also very much a part of Mess, in a quantum kind of way. What is it about this multiverse, quantum time, everything everywhere all at once-ness that intrigues you so much?
Kirsten Vangsness:
My favorite person in the world when I was a kid was my grandpa, and he died when I was in fifth grade. And then, my best friend, Michael, died of AIDS in ’96, and I got to be there with him through a lot of that. I mean, no, that’s a lie. I got to be with him through some of it and then not. But I was there and we had some talks. We had some big talks about what I was going to go and do. And I remember he wanted me to get a tattoo and he wanted me to become famous. And I remember… Okay, fine, I still don’t have a tattoo. And he would say, “I’m going to make things with you.” And he was a musician, he was the best. When I was a kid, I was terrified of… I wouldn’t sleep for long periods, terrified of sleeping at night for both what would happen and just the fall of sleep, the loss of control.
So I have a lot of… I need to know that endedness is not a thing. So even if it is a thing, I think that this is how I get through the day, but I really don’t believe it is and I feel like I have people that I love. I have people that I love that are the most talented people in the world. Scott McKinley and Judy Levin and Michael Hammond and fuck it, even my dad, who wanted to do these things, wanted to make these things and they didn’t get to. And this idea, whether it’s their own fucking fault or not, because my dad is one of those people when I perform, I’m like, “You can show up, but stay over there.” But you get to co-mingle with all that energy that’s come before you and after you.
I really want that to be true. I just want it to be true. And I love Neil deGrasse Tyson enough to believe in the nonsense that that’s not, but I really have decided that it is and I have enough evidence in my own life to prove it. And whether I’ve made that up or not, I do. And part of that is when I write. And that theme constantly comes through me and I do not… I sit down and it screams at me to write things. I don’t go, “I want this and this is how this…” That’s not how it works.
Debbie Millman:
Given all the writing you do, in addition to acting, all the plays you’ve written, all the episodes you’ve written, do you consider yourself a playwright?
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, I say that I am, and it’s so funny, because you could… Given all the things, and I’m like, I… And I’m only saying this out loud because I bet there might be someone listening to this who’s like, “Well, I’m not a writer because I’ve only…” I don’t feel like a writer. So, there. You know what I mean? I feel like a fricking fraud. And then, you just push through it. I mean, that… Another thing that I think about, my therapist, talked about one time about beauty because I have these hangups about it. Growing up, I used to be called ugly so much. I smelled funny and I had the weird posture and I dressed strange and it was so much a part of who I was. I was treated like I was so disgusting and I felt so disgusting.
And I remember my therapist talking about what real beauty is, is this believing you’re one thing and the act of pushing through and acting, giving yourself that right to be in that energy of beauty, which exists in all of us, that’s what’s beautiful. That’s beauty, is to watch that tension between not collapsing in your own [inaudible 01:14:49] and moving through it. That’s what it is. So I like to think that same thing of being a writer, being anything. It’s like the tension of holding on. And I’m only collapsing because I’m sharing it and I’m going back into it and going, “Yes, I consider myself a playwright.” But that’s the process I go through, is I’m like… I was coming here. I’m like, “I can’t believe I’m going to do this thing with…” You’re like, “Push through. You have to push through it because I’m always going to be in this little body that does this little dance.”
Debbie Millman:
You introduced me to a quote from Neil Gaiman, who I also adore, who stated that most of writing is getting ready to write.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, my God. I get ready to write, so there’s a lot of getting ready and I forget to do that. And he’s so very good at that stuff and he’s so affirming of people’s things. I remember when he came to Mess, he had given me an advanced copy of Ocean at the End of the Lane, and I hadn’t read it yet. And I walked out to say hi to him and he brought Michael Sheen. He brought Michael Sheen and they’re both staring at me in wonder. And I was like, “What’s going on?” And he said, “Have you read the book yet?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “I didn’t think so.” And he gave me a hug and he said, “This is in the same waters. You got it from the same waters as the book.”
And it was like… That to me is such a writer who can acknowledge the specialness of creation period, but doesn’t… It’s Neil freaking Gaiman who’s taking ownership of it, like, “It’s mine.” It’s like, we all go to the water and we get what we have. You know what I mean? And we make sure… I think getting ready is like you make sure your buckets are properly weatherproofed and you have buckets. And sometimes, I come with a teaspoon and whatever. You got to be like, “Nope. You got to go get more stuff so you can get more water.”
Debbie Millman:
It’s so interesting because when I was watching Mess, I could understand why Neil loved it. It was so apparent to me and I loved it too. But now, I want to talk about Curtains, because in 2020, you wrote and animated your short story Curtains and it’s been accepted in film festivals around the globe. I really think it’s one of the most wonderful things that you’ve made. And before we start talking about it, I’m wondering if you could share just a little bit high altitude plot line of the story for our listeners?
Kirsten Vangsness:
I had a situation where I got in a dangerous situation. Do you want me to tell them specifically?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, if you can.
Kirsten Vangsness:
So I went to a dance class. I was in a particularly weird part, a vulnerable part of my life and I thought, “I’m going to go to this dance class and be free and whatever.” And I was feeling really good and I was in one of those moments and I got into a fender bender on the freeway and it wasn’t my fault, but it was a utility truck that hit me. And I was like, “Go ahead.” So I was in this fender bender just by myself basically, because I told the guy who hit me, “Just go.” And then…
Debbie Millman:
And he hit you from behind, by the way. So anybody that hits you from behind, it’s their fault.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, sorry. Sorry, I know that, but it was a utility truck and he looked terrified and I’m a fucking girl on a TV show and I operate like that. I mean, capitalism has served me well, I guess, but I am a social… I’m like, “We need to share this shit.” You know what I mean? So that was going to make his day really hard and it was going to be a blip on my radar. So it was like, “Go, go, go.” But my fender was all jacked up and I couldn’t drive my car and a tow truck came and the cops came at the same time. And then, the tow truck wasn’t supposed to stop because I was supposed to call for one, but it was there. And he was like, “The tow place is right down the street.” So I was like, “Okay.” And I was wearing my contacts because I wanted to be… I was trying to be girly and shit. And sometimes, we get told stories, right? That glasses make us look…
Debbie Millman:
Librarian.
Kirsten Vangsness:
… yeah, not attractive. Suck it, world. We’re very attractive people. And so, I got in the guy’s car, the tow truck. I was so panicked, you know how you’re shaking? I left my phone. Everything had gotten jostled and I didn’t know where it was and I got in the car and he didn’t take me to a tow truck place. We drove for a while. He got very aggressive and immediately when I got in the car, I was like, “Oh my God.” I know that world because I’ve been in traumatic… I’ve dated people. You know what I mean? I know the energy. So the second I got in the car, the energy changed and I was in suddenly, a dangerous situation. And what got me out of it was Criminal Minds. And I ended up having to convince him that I was on this show because I did not know what was going to happen.
And he ended up eventually taking me to the tow truck place. And I had written a short story about it, written a short story that the film became, and I had performed it once and people came up afterwards. Man, all different kinds of people. “That was really important.” Or “That happened to me.” And so, whenever that happens, you’re like, “Oh, I’ve got to do something else with this. This is important.” I was like, “That’s like Mess. Oh, I got to do something. This isn’t done.” So I told my friend Brendan, who has his own little production… Not little, it’s impressive, Jigsaw Ensemble. And he said, “You don’t want to make this in a regular short film, Kirsten. This should be animated because I know you. You, first of all, will have to lead it, but also, you don’t want to go through after take of doing that. It should be animated.”
And I was like, “Okay.” And then I thought, this is great because the story is not about… I used animals instead of people, which I think is perfect, because then you’re not looking at, “Oh, well, it’s because he’s…” I don’t know. In the story, the guy speaks not a language that I speak and I didn’t… That’s not part of the story. The story is not about… That’s not part. And it immediately becomes… It levels the playing field or something, and it was really beautiful, because I got to write it, direct it, tell the animator specifically, “This is what it should be.” And we actually did a scratch recording and that’s the recording we used. So I only had to do it once. And then, I made it. And then, Brendan was like, “I’m putting it in every single…” He was like, “Put in every single film festival.”
And then, the pandemic happened. And it’s so funny because my manager, my agents, they were like, “It’s fine, but I don’t know. What do you do with that?” I was like, “I just need the world to see it. I don’t need it…” And that’s why I make things, which could be a problem, but I’m just like, “I just want someone to see it.” And so, my intention of getting it out… I wrote every publication, every… But it was like, it didn’t get picked up anywhere, but it got into some film festivals. And so, I just slapped it up on Vimeo and you can just go. You can just look it up and there it is and you can watch it and…
Debbie Millman:
Well, we’ll provide a link for our listeners, but it’s beautiful. Curtains investigates the idea of vulnerability as a source of power, which is your superpower, I think. And the emotional curtains that we lay over our essential selves and the main character is a cat. Cats are also a recurring theme for you. They’re also in Mess. So I’m wondering, why cats?
Kirsten Vangsness:
When I was in fifth grade, my sister got to go back East to a family wedding and I did not go and I had to be alone with my parents for two weeks, which required me to hide in trees and gather food from the yard. And one of those days, there was a… God, my mom’s going to… Mom, I love you so much. We were all going through it. We were all going through it and someone abandoned a cat. We lived right by a field and someone abandoned a cat in the front yard, and they had slammed the car door on its tail. And so, its tail was hanging off. My mom took it to the vet, got it fixed up. They had to shave the little amputated tail, looked like he had a little sausage on his butt. I named him Gink and he saved my life, that cat. He drooled on me, he held me, he loved me. He liked to nurse on my clothes. And he became this giant beast of a cat and very masculine and very trained on me.
So no matter what was happening in that house, it was like I had a dire wolf who was just there, who was witnessing everything. And it was really valuable to my upbringing to have a masculine energy, a positive masculine energy, because I was not raised with someone who cherished me. I had to learn how people… I mean, I’m still learning and I’m way farther ahead now, but oh my God. I did online dating during the pandemic and I taught myself so many things about masculine and feminine and being queer and all… Oh my God, but… And I used, even in through that, the Gink energy. Do they have the Gink energy? I recently, in Criminal Minds, we have a kitten in some of the episodes and he was a rescue cat. They got a black little rescue cat, and then they were going to send him back to the shelter. I took that cat home. I now [inaudible 01:24:03] have four cats. Yeah. And his name is Gink.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, good. I’ve had a couple of soul animals over the course of my life. And as I’m getting older now and going into the third or the fourth round of a new pet, I’m starting to think, “Oh, maybe I can bring back some of those old names that I loved so much.”
Kirsten Vangsness:
The only hard part is they have to live up to the name.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
Kirsten Vangsness:
And so, he’s still like… It’s a big mantle.
Debbie Millman:
Very big.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. The last thing I want to talk with you about is your work with Theater of Note. You mentioned it before. You’ve been a member of the theater for over 20 years. How did you first become involved with the organization?
Kirsten Vangsness:
When you’re in Los Angeles and you’re an actor, you need places to do it, especially when no one’s calling you to do it anywhere else. So that is a really great space to do it at and I had a friend years ago who was a reviewer and she said, “You should audition at Note.” And I went and I did. And then, I went to a play there and it was like they were doing this play called [inaudible 01:25:01] at Home, which was a retelling of [inaudible 01:25:03]. It was so amazing and it was just this tiny black box with one bathroom and the fact that they could reorient the stage and you could be anywhere in this black box. I’m very into… I like to make clothes. I mean, I’m not a sewer, but I’ll cut a thing off or I like to do things my own way.
And that nothing there that you could just create stuff was very appealing to me and I stayed. And also, it was like acting class, because you’re working with all different kinds of people, all different kinds of acting levels and I just stayed. And also, theater is like… It’s so important. It’s the beginning of conversations. I did a play there called fucking Wasps, and it was about Kinsey and I remember we worked on it for six months and we were opening and no one was coming and I didn’t have any money and I watched them plaster the movie Kinsey billboard up across the street and I was like, “We made that happen.” The collective unconscious of theater is so valuable, and it’s one of the places where people of different upbringings, cultures, races, ages, you’re all together in the same space. I mean, church is like that, I guess, but theater is so specific because you’re all in love with the same thing and it forces you to make a community, to make a family.
And it’s so important that we have places like that and people don’t force themselves to be in that. And I realized when I was doing Criminal Minds, there’s art and there’s commerce, and it’s not always going to fill your art well. And Note is its own group of bananas, but I chose to stay there and be a member because it gives back to me. People are going, “Oh, it’s so great that you’re…” No, it’s part of my street cred. It makes me cool that I get to hang out with those people. And they do relevant and sometimes clunky and whatever stuff, but it’s like those are the people… I want to hang out with the people that are willing to get in the middle of the arena for the sheer purpose of doing it. Not because someone’s going to come, not because someone’s going to… Not because you’re getting accolades or getting paid for it and I feel really passionately about that.
Debbie Millman:
Kirsten Vangsness, thank you so much for making so much work that matters and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
Kirsten Vangsness:
Oh, my God. What a pleasure. What a dream.
Debbie Millman:
You can learn more about Kirsten Vangsness and all the work she has done on her website, kirstenvangsness.com. You can currently see her in the world premiere of the play, Nimrod at the Theater of Note in Hollywood, California. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.