‘Biggest Mistake I Ever Made’: Why This Criminal Minds Star Regrets Ever Starring in the Show
2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Criminal Minds’ debut on television, which is an impressive milestone for any ongoing series. A series with that kind of longevity is objectively a successful one, and those involved usually speak of such things with pride. However, the actor around whom the FBI profiling procedural was built doesn’t see it that way. Beloved actor Mandy Patinkin calls playing Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds one of the most significant mistakes he made in his acting career.
When a series endures like Criminal Minds (now called Criminal Minds: Evolution on Paramount+), it’s because the viewers appreciate and support the show. The cast of profilers isn’t done yet, as production is underway for Criminal Minds Season 18. Still, all this evidence that Criminal Minds is appreciated by audiences hasn’t softened Patinkin’s stance on his two seasons in the cast. He played Jason Gideon, the superstar profiler and founder of the BAU, until he abruptly left the show in the second episode of its third season. While The Princess Bride star has gone on to appear in a number of venerated productions, he does not look back fondly on his time as Gideon.
Despite only appearing in 46 of Criminal Minds‘ 345 total episodes, Jason Gideon left a major impact on the show. While FBI profiling is a dubious (at best) field of criminology, Gideon was the character who truly made it seem like a superpower. A student of a man named Max Ryan, Gideon was one of the founders of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Despite his regrets, Patinkin played the character as a compassionate investigator who believed justice did not always come from the barrel of a gun.
After his departure, both Joe Mantegna’s David Rossi and Felicity Huffman’s Doctor Jill Gideon — Jason’s ex-wife and mother of his son — were retconned in as co-founders of the unit. Ironically, Patinkin’s Gideon never shared a scene with either character. Instead, his closest relationship in Criminal Minds was with Matthew Gray Gubler’s Spencer Reid. After a case goes horribly wrong in the Season 3 premiere, it’s Reid who travels to Gideon’s cabin discovering his resignation letter.
He ultimately bailed on the unit and disappeared from the characters’ lives. Still, Gideon was the BAU’s star profiler who is spoken of with reverence by characters even in Criminal Minds Season 17. While Patinkin may think of his time on the series as a mistake, the show treats Jason Gideon with love and respect. Stories that involved Gideon, such as Criminal Minds‘ Season 1 finale, resonated through successive episodes for years. Patinkin may want nothing further to do with the series, but the show has never forgotten the contribution he made through the character he helped create.
The surprise exit of Jason Gideon at the top of Season 3 shocked fans, many of whom expected the character to one day return. At first, the reason Mandy Patinkin left Criminal Minds was attributed to the catch-all Hollywood reason: “creative differences.” While this is not exactly inaccurate, it perhaps downplays the severity of those disagreements. Both before and after playing Gideon, Patinkin played characters who were closely involved with tragic deaths. Right before the series, he played Rube on Dead Like Me, a show about grim reapers who had to collect the souls of people violently killed. After leaving the series, he played Saul Berenson on Homeland, which focused on the violence of war and terrorism.
