GRIZZLED actor Harvey Keitel is nearing a deal to replace Mandy Patinkin on the CBS drama “Criminal Minds.”

Keitel, 67, doesn’t do much TV work, and this would be his first starring series role.

He was last seen on the small screen in the CBS miniseries “The Path to 9/11” playing John O’Neill, the FBI’s Al Qaeda expert who sounded the alarm about the terrorist organization – then died Sept. 11 while working as the security chief at the World Trade Center.

Patinkin left “Criminal Minds” last month, citing “creative differences.”

Since then, the show’s producers have been searching for a “big-name actor” to play a new central character in the FBI profiler drama, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Keitel has starred on the big screen in “National Treasure,” “The Piano,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,” among many other movies.