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'Criminal Minds' women play spy game for CBS photo shoot By Jay Bobbin © Zap2it criminals, but their bodies still like to play dress-up. Such was the appeal to Their minds may be on the female stars of CBS' long-running Wednesday series "Criminal Minds" — Paget Brewster, A.J. Cook and Kirsten Vangsness — when they participated earlier this year in a photo shoot for the June issue of CBS Watch! Magazine. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Tysons Corner, Va. (just outside Washington, D.C.), proved to have all the swanky settings needed for the shoot's storyline casting the women as high-class spies tailing an international bad guy. Brewster, alias FBI always glam up more there than for I do for TV stuff, so I feel very much at home with this." The shoot's theme was Behavioral Analysis Unit agent Emily Prentiss on "Criminal Minds," says while on location for the occasion that the feel is "very film-noir, three undercover chicks taking down a James Bond-villain archetype. It's been really fun, and the stylists gave us great clothes, so we're excited. I think we're all buying one of our dresses!" Techno-genius Penelope a collaboration between celebrity photographer Matt Hoyle and Jeremy Murphy, CBS Watch! editor-in- chief. Hoyle explains the magazine's staff "saw some of my more cinematic stuff, and I think they were inspired by that. They said, 'We want to do a spy theme, but we want you to make it your own.' I created this amalgam of all the spy movies I've seen, so it has a little of the Cold War espionage of the '40s and '50s, but a couple of the shots are more modern and sleek and Angelina Jolie-esque like 'La Femme Nikita.' " The long day of Garcia on the show, Vangsness believes the shoot's approach makes total sense. "There actually are more female spies than male spies, but they're so good, you just don't know about them," she muses. "I'm a theater girl, and I photography also took the actresses to a chilly parking garage, where they willingly vamped it up in a "Charlie's Angels"-type setup ... with Brewster, wearing only a black leotard, understandably racing for a bathrobe to warm up as soon as Hoyle got each shot. While he knew "Criminal Minds" to a degree, he admits, "I wanted to come at this as a blank slate. I wanted to create characters who stand on their own, and (the actresses have) mentioned to me that they're having fun playing parts that are new and of another time." returned to the series this season as BAU operative Jennifer "JJ" Jareau — reflects, "I don't think it's even anywhere in the realm of what we play on the show. It's fun to escape and fantasize, and that's what this whole thing has felt like. They just came up with a great concept, and it's been a great experience." During the magazine Indeed, Cook — who shoot, which was a rare chance for the actresses to get away together, Brewster informed Cook and Vangsness of her plan to leave "Criminal Minds" at the end of this season. The news wouldn't become public for several more weeks, and she says, "It wasn't even really a decision. It was something I'd wrestled with for a while, and my gut just kept saying, 'Go do something else.' " Having left "Criminal Minds" once before, not by her own choice, Brewster adds Cook and Vangsness "completely understood. When I thought, 'OK, I could stay and get a raise,' I'd just sort of crumble inside. As much as I love everyone on 'Criminal Minds,' I couldn't shake the desire to go learn and try something else. And I don't lose the best parts of the show, which are my friendships with the people on it." she'll still see her "Criminal" co-stars regularly, the professional parting won't be easy. Vangsness makes that clear by saying about the photo session, "To go to a location where you don't quite know where you're going and you don't know any of the other people, there's a bit of relinquishing control to strangers, and I can't think of two people I would feel safer around. They are exquisitely wonderful women, and I'm so glad to get to spend a couple of days with them." The CBS Watch! story While Brewster insists might have run during the summer instead, or even in the fall, but Murphy maintains Brewster's announcement didn't cause major rearranging. "Fortunately, this is going on while Paget's still on the show," he reasons of releasing the issue around the time of the seventh-season finale May 16, a two-hour episode encompassing her exit as Prentiss. "Maybe it's a nice way for her to go out." Offering something different for his network's stars to do is traditional for Murphy, who has taken Pauley Perrette ("NCIS") and Archie Panjabi ("The Good Wife") to Paris and had Kaley Cuoco ("The Big Bang Theory") photographed aboard a flight to England for CBS Watch! stories. Catch the Craze & Save! Save on Rentals • Breakfast Get Free Glass Cleaner Save on a Quilt Find these great savings plus more on Coupon Craze! In The Goshen News every Monday, Online everyday! Nobody covers your hometown better 114 S. Main St., Goshen 574-533-2151 www.goshennews.com Employment Ad Today! Place Your Over 3,500 resumes are posted on monster.com in The Goshen News readership areas. 574-533-2151 ext. 398 goshennews.com / Oil Change Plus a FREE Express Prices vary by model. Plus tax & fees. Coupon must be presented at write up and cannot be combined with other offers. Expires 4/30/12. Inspection just $2995 . 2200 BYPASS RD. • ELKHART, IN 46514 574.522.4475www.GurleyLeepHonda.com Kirsten Vangsness (left) and A.J. Cook star in "Criminal Minds" Wednesdays on CBS. 2 The Goshen News • Viewer's Choice • Saturday, April 28, 2012 Nobody Knows Our Hometown Better!

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