The Hilarious Shemar Moore Prank Criminal Minds Fans Never Got To See
Shemar Moore has been pretty vocal in the past about the cast of "Criminal Minds" liking their pranks, and being on the receiving end of a few. In an interview with TV Guide, he says "they [cast mates] used to punk me with fake rats. They'd put a string on a big ol' long ball of black tape. I'd be in the middle of a scene, and they'd pull it through the scene. And they'd go, 'Oh, Shemar, a rat!' And I would jump up on tables. I don't like rats."
When the "Criminal Minds" cast appeared on "The Talk" to celebrate their 200th episode, the cast joked about all the things Moore was scared of. "Shemar is scared of bears," Matthew Gray Gubler said, before Thomas Gibson piped in with "Shemar is scared of a lot of stuff, actually. Bears, the rats, and oh, bigfoot (via Matthew Gray Gubler fan page)." However, in the midst of all this hilarity, there's one particularly clever prank that the crew pulled on Moore that he doesn't think he'll ever live down.
The crew convinced Shemar Moore to wear green tape
On the "Criminal Minds" DVD, there's a behind the scenes look at the cast and crew shooting the Season 9 episode of "The Black Queen." One of the executive producers, Breen Frazier, recalls Shemar Moore "shaved his goatee, thinking that we were starting a new episode. That's a problem because clean-faced Shemar doesn't match all the other footage we shot of Shemar with the goatee." Instead of simply having the makeup artist fill in where his goatee would be, the crew decided to have a little fun, telling him that they would use CGI, so he would have to put green dots on his face where his goatee would be.
"One of the crew members goes, "Oh, I did a movie with Tom Hanks, and we had to do that for his beard," Moore recalls. "I'm like, 'Oh, Tom Hanks, Oscar winner. Well, if he had a beard and they had to do it, if Tom Hanks will do it, then I should do it.'" After several takes, the crew convinced him to switch from green dots to full-on green tape. Everyone was going along with the prank and acting serious, until a scene Moore was in with Kirsten Vangsness. She "turned and had to look at him. She broke, and then we all broke," Frazier remembers.
Moore couldn't believe he fell for it. "I'm never going to live this down, ever," he laughs.