By: Izumi Hasegawa

David Krumholtz (Getty Images)

Popular series Numb3rs has recently achieved that rare television milestone of 100 episodes. David Krumholtz has captivated the show’s loyal fans, playing the role of Charlie Eppes, a brilliant mathematician who manages to solve the FBI’s most tricky cases.  David sits down with Buzzine and shares his thoughts about math, acting, and 100 episodes.

Izumi Hasegawa: Congratulations on the 100th episode. How do you feel now?

David Krumholtz: I feel great. I feel very, very lucky.

IH: So, four years… What do you remember?

DK: Wow, I have lots of memories. I remember the people more than anything else — all the wonderful guest-stars that have done episodes, and just fun times with the cast… Doing a show like this is an emotional roller coaster and it’s quite a journey. It definitely feels like five years. It’s not one of those things where it just feels like yesterday — it’s been a lot of hard work. It feels like a wonderful accomplishment to get to where we are now, and hopefully it’s not over.

IH: Now you can say any difficult math terms without practice?

DK: Yes. To me, it’s like nothing. Very easy. [Laughs] No, it’s still hard, but not as hard as it used to be. 

IH: You had to force yourself to memorize all of these math terms when you started, but now things come very naturally...?

DK: Yeah, we’ve covered a lot of ground so there’s not much that’s new to me, and we’ve done a few things over and over again, so yeah, it comes out of my mouth a little easier.

IH: Rob [Morrow] and Judd [Hirsch] play your family’s characters. Do you click easier without saying anything? You’re just, “Okay, we can do this”?

DK: Yeah, this season actually went by really fast because there’s an unspoken language that’s like a subconscious thing and we all know each other’s rhythms and patterns. It went a lot quicker and felt easier this season.

IH: What was your favorite saying?

DK: Numbers don’t lie. Simple.

IH: Why?

DK: Well, because it’s true. Mathematics is the most finite manner of expressing yourself in our world. It’s the bottom line. It’s the deepest level you can go, and so there’s no truth beyond numbers. The numbers don’t lie.

IH: What was your favorite scene?

DK: Oh wow. I think I did a scene a few years ago on the beach with Peter MacNichol, who’s my favorite actor on the show, where he just came back from space and he realized that the answers he was looking for…he couldn’t find those answers out in space. He was going to discover the meaning of life, but instead he realized that the meaning of life and his own existence was within himself, and he needed to start looking inward, not outward. There’s a beautiful scene on the beach when he told me that. 

IH: What was going on in the 100th episode?

DK: Well, the 100th episode was kind of like a rebirth for our show, in a sense, in that it’s another serial killer case, just like we did in the pilot, and Charlie is very hyper-vigilant because he desperately wants to solve the case, and he believes he sees a pattern that no one else does, and everyone else doubts him. Everyone. Even the people who have worked with him so many times. In the end, he ends up being right. 

IH: Has Charlie changed through these years?

DK: Very much, yeah. He’s become a lot more confident — maybe over-confident; he asserts himself more, and he’s sort of dealing with the pressure of living down what his name is supposed to be — the destiny that he is supposed to fulfill. He’s sort of trying to figure out how to just be, instead of to fulfill that destiny.