NCIS: Tony & Ziva may have just premiered with its first three episodes on Paramount+, but it is the latest spinoff in a long-running franchise. NCIS, on which both Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo originated their characters, is going into its 23rd season. Both stars know how “lucky” they were on that show and would love to continue playing their characters.
“I think we’d be lucky to play these characters for — look, I’ll say this: Season 1 was like a dream. It was so much fun to go back and revisit these characters. Where this goes, we know not,” de Pablo tells TV Insider. “All we know is that we had to do this. Michael and I felt we owed it to the fans. And so we’re really happy about this just being able to happen. We manifested it. It came together beautifully. We had [showrunner] John McNamara leading this. He came up with a world that is beautiful. I mean, visually. You saw how beautiful the backdrop of Europe is and how it almost is like a character in itself, like how that backdrop is its own sort of romantic character that allows the story to so beautifully be played out.”
She continued, “We’re just grateful that we got a chance to do it, and the rest is the rest. If we got a chance to do it again, we’d be thrilled.”
Weatherly shared that it reminded him of a joke the two of them and Sean Murray (who has played Timothy McGee on NCIS since Season 1) made at every crime scene, which was “a weekly occurrence for us, and we had to wear the rubber gloves and the hats -”
Weatherly continued, “And the backpack, and it’s like a Halloween costume. We did so many of those things that you forget that there’s a decapitated corpse in front of you or whatever. You’re just walking around eating a sandwich. And Cote and Sean and I would, depending on who was feeling particularly squirrelly that day, turn to the other two and go, ‘How many more seasons you got? How many more seasons you got?'”
Added de Pablo, “And we’d just die laughing.”
She then pointed out that back then, they had 24-episode seasons, which was the result of 10 months straight of work. “Thank God we were much younger. Very little sleep,” she admitted. “We were going on Episode, like, 15. We were already, of course, very third, but thank God, we showed up to work and we just loved it. We laughed every day.”
Weatherly, of course, remembers Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) “Grab your gear.”
Cliff Lipson/CBS
And speaking of Harmon, according to de Pablo, he “used to always say something, which could not have been more true. He said, ‘You have no idea how special and how rare this is.’ And Michael and I often talk about that. We say, ‘Boy, that was such a beautiful time, a golden time.’ But I have to say, ‘Season 1 of T&Z was very magical. And Michael and I looked at each other many a time, and I’d have to pinch myself. I’d have to go, ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe we’re playing these characters, and I can’t believe I get to play with you.’ And I was happy every single time I showed up to work.”
McNamara is hesitant to look too much into the future. “I try never to count my chickens before they’re hatched. I’m just focused on finishing this season and trying to make it as good as possible,” he said. “And honestly, it is going to be entirely up to the fans and the subscribers to Paramount+ and ultimately to Paramount and CBS. It’s their property and it’s their money.”
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