Malcolm McDowell is returning to The Mentalist this fall as Britt Stiles, the leader of the Visualize Self-Realization Center. McDowell told TV Guide Magazine that he starts shooting next week. "I'm obviously some kind of dastardly serial killer type," he jokes. "But I like fencing with Simon Baker."

McDowell says the ambiguous church leader, who was first introduced this spring in the episode "Red All Over," is a great recurring character because, "he's a charming, charismatic, deadly character — but he's wonderful because he is so smooth. He is like Teflon and whenever he's attacked he just smiles and deflects everything."

And he's excited to work with Baker again. "I didn't realize quite how good of an actor he is until I worked with him," says McDowell. "He's very, very skilled. At 11:30 at night, he's still saying, 'No, let's talk about it,' as opposed to 'Let's get home to bed.' He wants to get it right. And he's right."

Next up for McDowell is the upcoming TNT law drama Franklin & Bash, where he plays the CEO of a big law firm in LA, who hires two renegade lawyers [played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer] to represent his firm. "We get all these marvelous adventures, and it's driven by the characters and the situations and the drama. We have really great writers, so if we can't make it a really good show there's something wrong with us."

Source: TV Guide