Why These Criminal Minds Moments Meant So Much To Joe Mantegna

Many parents have brought their offspring along to their workplace for Take Your Daughter(s) and Son(s) to Work Day, but for Mantegna, having his daughter Gia on the Criminal Minds set was about much more than a passing visit. Instead, the actress took an active part in the proceedings, portraying abduction victim and eventual unsub Lindsey Vaughan. Speaking with Looper, Mantegna cited working with Gia as one of the absolute best moments of his Criminal Minds run.

"The producers came to me and said, 'We know who your daughter is, we've seen some of her work. There's this role that we think she'd be really good for if you don't mind her playing it,'" recalled Mantegna. "She was only 17 at the time, and it was to play a daughter of a hitman. And it was a kind of dark episode, and her character is somewhat dark, in the sense that she was obviously strongly influenced by her hitman father. I said, 'Hey, no, look — I'm very open about all that. If she wants to do it, if you approach her and you like her for the role, go for it.' So she did it, and it was great to work with her on the show like that."

Of course, any avid Criminal Minds viewer knows that's not the end of the story, as Lindsey Vaughan would return in dramatic fashion. 

"What kind of completed that circle was that, 10 years later, they came to me and said, 'Okay, we've got this idea.' They thought, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to see what happens to a character like that 10 years later?'" Mantegna said. "So, they brought her character back and did a whole arc with her. And you see that she has obviously been influenced by her father's lifestyle, and the father has actually cleaned up his act, but she's taken the reins. To be able to do that in my occupation, to cross over to part of my real life that way, is great."