NCIS
Interviews

There's no "i" in NCIS. Oh, wait, there is. While TV's #1 show features a talented cast from top to bottom, Michael Weatherly has probably shined the most so far this season.

In the heart-stopping Season 7 premiere, "Truth or Consequences," Weatherly's Tony DiNozzo was featured in an episode that seemed engineered to show off his character.

Whether he's tormenting McGee, being chastised by Gibbs, flirting with Ziva (Cote de Pablo) or annoying pretty much everyone, he's remained front and center ever since.

In an interview with TV Guide Magazine, Weatherly talked about his juvenile character, a song he has coming up on the NCIS soundtrack and much more. Excerpts below:

On NCIS now being TV's No. 1 show, not just the No. 1 non-reality show: "I just don’t want anything to change. No. 3 is kind of better. They’re still not gonna cancel you if you’re No. 3. But now everyone’s looking. It’s kind of like when they give you the ball in football."

On just now starting to attract younger viewers: "We had a stinky stigma ... the Navy NCIS and Diagnosis CSI and the JAG-Off - whatever attached to us. But when people see the show at face value, free of any association, they just like it.

And for some reason they seem to be finding CBS at 8:00 on Tuesday. I think [younger viewers] like the whole bratty sibling thing. Somebody came up to me yesterday and they said, “You were very annoying on the show the other day.” And I said, “Then I’ve got a job.”

On not doing a crossover with NCIS: Los Angeles: "I won’t do a crossover, unless they put a gun to my head. It won't help them, and my character is really only valuable in the context of Ziva, Gibbs and McGee. Robbed of his context, that guy might really be inappropriate."

On his parents' reaction to the spinoff: "My parents thought immediately that meant I must be losing my job to someone. After the second episode aired, my mom called from Rhode Island. She said, 'It’s a big year. You don’t want to maybe bring it down like two inches off the waist?'

I hired Sting’s trainer, because Sting, that guy, boy he looks good. I figure if I’m gonna be doing NCIS into my 50s, I should get in good shape. I don’t think we’re going home soon."

On torturing Sean Murray's Tim McGee: "Sean has been doing this growing thing where I started referring to him as Tim [and not “Probie”]. But you don’t want to get too far away from it. You know what I mean? Probie does have to be Probie.

One of the things audiences often don’t think about is the reason Tony is a jackass is so Gibbs can correct him, because then Gibbs looks authoritarian, which is what he is. Part of the dynamic of the show is that Tony irritates people, but when he’s not around, they kind of miss him."

On knowing his role: In the episode “Bounce” last year, where Tony put the wrong guy away three years earlier when Gibbs had retired, and now the guy had gotten out of jail and it turned out that he didn’t do the embezzling, Gibbs was like, “Well, it’s your case.”

It was ostensibly my episode, so I had to lead the team. And when it aired, my mother and my father were both like, “Well, you weren’t very convincing as the lead.”

And I said “Right! So, job well done.”

Cote de Pablo hails from the nation of Chile, whereas her character on NCIS, Ziva David, is of Israeli descent. Only one of them is a trained killer with ice in her veins.

Still there are parallels between the two, as TV Guide learned, not the least of which being their sober professionalism in the face of certain people's goofiness.

Yup, we're talking about both Michael Weatherly and Tony DiNozzo. Below are excerpts from the magazine's recent Q&A with the super-serious special agent.

Q: So Ziva gets to be “probie” for a while now?

Cote: Wellll, as probie as Ziva can be. She gets teased specifically by DiNozzo, who just finds it the funniest thing in the world. But it bothers her tremendously.

Q: You were the last major piece of the NCIS puzzle, at least for the core group. You’ve been here four years now. How long did you feel like a probie?

Cote: I never felt like a probie on this show. I always felt I belonged, like I was just a part of it from the very beginning, as soon as I stepped on set. I never viewed it as anything else but “This is my role and this is my family and this is what I do.”

Q: Your character has gone through some attitude changes lately, from angry and defiant at the end of Season 6 to repentant at the beginning of this one.

Cote: Yes, [Ziva's] got what I think you could call anger issues. She thinks she’s been betrayed by her family, particularly her father. That’s a big deal to her. Which would also explain her love and relationship with somebody like Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon).

Q: Can you describe the screen test that got you the job?

Cote: hen I came in and did my audition, Michael Weatherly went off script, and I just thought “Oh my God, this guy is sabotaging my audition!” And I immediately perked up and went “I will not allow this actor to do this to me.”

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The lead character on TV's #1 show, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, is unlike most - on NCIS or beyond. Gibbs is a strong, silent type in charge of strong, outspoken types.

Tony DiNozzo even described Gibbs as “a functional mute” to a curious terrorist in the Season 7 premiere. While Leroy may utter slightly more words than are necessarily for survival, the point made by his contrastingly mouthy subordinate was well taken.

Luckily, the actor who plays Gibbs, Mark Harmon, while also strong, is a little less silent. In a Q&A with TV Guide, he talks about where the characters on NCIS are headed and how, perhaps not surprisingly, he doesn’t want to know where they’re going.

Like he would tell you anyway. That's classified, people. Excerpts below ...

On being called "the #1 show on TV" ... "I don’t know that you get tired about that. This group so deserves it in a business where deserve doesn’t matter. It’s truly odd that we would be in year 7 doing the best numbers we’ve ever done. But I think we’re doing it better than ever, too."

On NCIS shedding the stigma of a "military drama" ... "It takes time and we’re in a business here where sometimes you don’t get time. This show jumped off somewhere in the 30s [in the Nielsen ratings], and that’s where we were for a while. And slowly, with the build of summer reruns, we started getting some more viewers."

On developing characters on a procedural show ... "All of us here signed on to play specific characters. I’ve never been part of an ensemble like this where everybody’s just so happy playing the role they’re playing. You can’t write Abby lines for Gibbs, and you can’t write Gibbs lines for DiNozzo, and you can’t write DiNozzo quotes for McGee, and you can’t write Ziva lines for anybody. Everybody is personally driven by the characters we all play here."

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Shane Brennan has a nice gig: he's the producer of both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles.

Also known as: the top rated shows on all of television last week.

In a new interview with TV Guide Magazine, Brennan said he has plays to integrate the shows often with one another, starting with the appearance of Abby in Los Angeles.

Here's what the producer had to say about upcoming crossovers between his pair of hits:

On crossovers: Abby will visit Los Angeles. It’s a story that will be self-contained, but the ripple effect of what she’s involved in will go back to Washington with her, and it will play out in the second half of [the original show’s] season. It’s a two-way street here.

When we do these crossover episodes, they’re about making sure that both shows are taking something from it. It’s not about one show supporting the other... And we’ve got a crossover bad guy. There’s someone that we see on NCIS: Los Angeles who will actually end up in the other show as well, so that’ll be a bit of fun. 

On this new character: The bad guy is a woman. It’s someone who Vance knows, this particular bad guy. And Vance, being the director of a federal agency and everyone’s boss, has that wonderful opportunity of being able to move back and forth at will between the shows. And the involvement he has with this particular bad guy begins in Los Angeles and basically ends in D.C.

Having said that, there are other stories and other opportunities for both shows where you have a bad guy who can start the journey in D.C. and end up in Los Angeles, or who they jointly investigate. So I think there’s great potential there. It’ll be interesting to see how the audience reacts to that kind of story.

NCIS producer Shane Brennan sat down with TV Guide Magazine this week.

But those hoping for major NCIS spoilers will be sorely disappointed. He only touched on various topics - such as Gibbs' boat and the future of Tony and Ziva - in the most general terms.

Here are a couple excerpts from the interview:

On upcoming character arcs: Abby has a very special arc. And McGee has a very special arc. The Tony/Ziva thing we’ll be resolving in a way... the vast bulk of the audience will find very satisfying. And with Gibbs, what can you say?
The boat’s gone from the basement. What the hell is Gibbs gonna put in there? He’s on a particular journey as well. I will say that the basement will feature in a number of episodes, and it is very, very empty, and Gibbs is very, very aware how empty it is.

On the future of Tony and Ziva: The worst thing you could do is not let the characters grow. And relationships change constantly. I’ve been married 30 years, so my relationship with my wife is constantly changing. If it wasn’t, we would have been divorced 20 years ago. Your instincts change in the way that life changes. So in many respects, that’s what Tony and Ziva are faced with now: How do they move forward after what’s happened? And which direction is forward?