"When it ended, I was so distraught, like, 'Oh no! What do I do?' ... I was so bored. I just flipped out and cut my damn hair! I did it with, like, a hunting knife. It was bad," the Criminal Minds star tells TVGuide.com. "I looked like a Super Mario Bros. Goomba. It's arguably the ugliest haircut on the planet."

Unfortunately, no one will get to see the result of his raw barber skills as his 'do was "shaped up" at work. But fans will get to see Gubler's other skills — and the realization of his lifelong dream — Wednesday: his directorial debut on the hit series (9/8c, CBS). "I hate to take credit, but it turned out to be something I'm very proud of," he says. "If there's one thing I'm good at, I would hope to God it's directing because I know that I've spent pretty much the last 28 years of my life preparing for that!"

Though he's best known for playing Dr. Spencer Reid on the crime serial, Gubler, who turns 30 on March 9, aspired to be a filmmaker and boasts a degree in film directing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Following graduation, he "accidentally got sideswiped" into acting after a role in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou by Wes Anderson, for whom he was interning at the time. Then came Minds in 2005, followed by "tons of flak" from friends for having chosen acting over filmmaking.

"I feel like I finally got my last laugh. Those five years have trained me so well — being able to communicate with and understand actors, which I really didn't learn in school. I wasn't nervous directing [my co-stars] since we're like family now," Gubler says. "I've always really felt bizarrely — not out of place — but confused that I'm on a hit show, getting a lot of work as an actor and having a great time, but it never made sense to me because I've always felt like my true calling was being a filmmaker. I've realized now that it was all just leading up to this moment."

A former child magician and a sketch artist, Gubler — who has directed music videos and makes a series of online satirical videos about his life — says he has always loved entertaining. His creative pursuits have been on the show before — he's done magic in episodes, and his own sketch of Nathan Harris (Anton Yelchin) was used in Season 2's "Sex, Birth and Death" (after, on Mandy Patinkin's suggestion, he ripped up the prop department's "horribly accurate, perfect tracing of Anton's face," he laughs). He made his directing ambitions known, but it wasn't until the end of Season 4 that Gubler approached executive producer/showrunner Ed Bernero about finally stepping behind the camera. "Ed goes, 'You're ready. All you had to do was ask,'" Gubler says. "He's been very encouraging of my art and all the things I've made."