‘NCIS: Tony & Ziva’: Max Osinski Explains How Tony & Ziva Are Changing Boris

In the latest episode, “Fire Sale,” Boris did want to leave for his honeymoon — Fruzsi (Anne-Marie Waldeck) has already gone ahead — but he ended up staying to attend a weapons expo with Tony (Michael Weatherly), Ziva (Cote de Pablo), and Claudette (Amita Suman). He was even there for Claudette as she dealt with the “anti-Claudette” at the event. Osinski agrees that he’s starting to get a sense of what this makeshift team — as Tony and Ziva try to find a way to prove they’re being framed by Jonah (Julian Ovenden) and Martine (Nassima Benchicou) of Interpol — means to him.

“I think he’s also learning from observation. He’s kind of seeing what selflessness means and what that gives back to you. And he’s just watching through observation how Tony and Ziva interact with each other, what they’re willing to do for Tali [Isla Gie] and how they all look after each other and try to work together,” Osinski says. “And I think we kind of slowly see Boris go from just this, ‘I’m a one man show, I’m the best, I don’t need anyone’s help, leave me alone,’ to, ‘Well, I’m stuck here, I might as well, I have to figure this out,’ to, ‘Well, here’s how I can help you make it better, get out of the way.’ And then you slowly see the ice kind of melt between him and Claudette and I love that it’s still a little prickly and it’s a bit of a frenemy vibe.”

He continues, “We wanted, me and Amita, to thread in some little signs and things like high fives or how we handle that scene at the convention, kind of like the big brother talking like, ‘Hey, snap out of it, you’re better than this.’ But it still comes out the Boris way. It sounds like an insult, which is the comedy. So yeah, it’s a lot of fun to play and I have a great scene partner with Amita, so it’s always exciting to see what we get to do and we just want to do more of it if we get to do the show.”

Osinski was also in for a surprise when it came to his character: He didn’t know that there was another hacker Boris looked up to — Velibor Topic‘s Lazar — until he saw it in the script. But then it’s up to him to take him out as Tony, Ziva, Boris, and Claudette attempt to stop what Martine, Jonah, and Lazar are doing at the expo (which includes taking control of a robot dog).

“His dream for the future would be just the two of them hacking away somewhere on an island and jogging shirtless on a beach or something, just bro-ing it out or at the gym, I don’t know,” Osinski says with a laugh. “But that was a lot of fun and it’s like you got to hit your idol on the back of the head with a shoe, which was always fun to play. Yeah, I love that.”

NCIS: Tony & Ziva, Thursdays, Paramount+

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