Together again
NCIS stars Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo reunite on screen for franchise spin-off NCIS: Tony & Ziva. The actors talk about the long-gestating project, their off-screen friendship and how the drama breaks the procedural mould.
Ten years after they last shared the screen together in NCIS, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly have reunited to begin filming their own spin-off series.
Marking the latest entry in the long-running NCIS franchise, NCIS: Tony & Ziva sees them reprise their roles as Ziva David (de Pablo) and Tony DiNozzo (Weatherly) in a story that finds the pair living in Paris.
The 10-episode series, which will debut on Paramount+, picks up after Ziva’s supposed death when Tony left the NCIS team (in the season 13 finale) to go and raise their daughter, Tali. Years later, Ziva was discovered alive, leading her to complete one final mission with NCIS before she was reunited with Tony and Tali in the French capital.
Since then — and where NCIS: Tony & Ziva begins — they have been raising Tali together. But when Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, try to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.
Produced by CBS Studios and distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution, NCIS: Tony & Ziva brings the franchise to Europe for the first time, but that isn’t the only change to a tried-and-trusted formula that has previously led to spin-offs in LA, New Orleans, Hawai’i and Sydney.
“Well, first of all, it’s not a procedural, so it doesn’t take place within the formula of a procedural,” de Pablo says. “It’s not like there’s a dead body at the beginning, then we have to solve the crime and then at the end it comes together and everyone goes back to their dysfunctional family.
“We wanted to take these two characters away from the agency and put them in a [different] world, and the world that was attractive to us was the international world. We didn’t know exactly where they were going to live. The love we get from all the fans all over the world was very evident, and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to give back a little bit of that to the fans?’ So we wanted to take the show and put it in an international world.”
Filming has now started on the series in Budapest with a cast that includes Isla Gie (Foundation) as Tali, as well as Amita Suman, Maximilian Osinski, Nassima Benchicou, Julian Ovenden, Terence Maynard, Lara Rossi and James D’Arcy.
Before that, de Pablo and Weatherly attended June’s Monte Carlo TV Festival, where they previewed the series and discussed their off-screen friendship and why trust is a key theme of the series.
The actors had previously talked about what a show about their two characters might look like, but it took 10 years and the introduction of writer John McNamara to bring NCIS: Tony & Ziva to the screen…
Weatherly: I can remember 10 years ago being parked at a beach and being on the phone in California, getting ready to shoot an episode of NCIS, calling Cote in Chile and saying, ‘What would it be like if we went and took these characters [somewhere else]? What would that be?’ Then fast-forward three years: I’m in New York making Bull, and there’s Michelle MacLaren, who’s a really talented producer-director. We had dinner with her. We might have had a few cocktails, and we cracked like, ‘Would it be cool if there was all this pain and emotion?’
That was seven years ago, and then time kept ticking by. Finally, during the pandemic, we had a lot of discussions and we found a writer named John McNamara who wanted to get involved. I’ve known John for 30 years; he wrote [2015 biopic] Trumbo and he’s an extraordinary writer and human. Then it coalesced as we talked. Cote started having all these great ideas about what if it was this, what if it was that?
But NCIS: Tony & Ziva isn’t just about the title characters…
Weatherly: Really, it should be ‘Tony, Ziva & Tali’ because every choice Tony and Ziva have to make in their adventure and in their journey, their child is in the front of their minds. When we were on NCIS, the mothership, we didn’t have children so we acted very personally. What do I want? What do I need? But when you have a child, you have to navigate what is best for them. Tali is the perfect character to introduce a new element of trouble.
Tony and Ziva now live in Paris, but the Olympics has prevented filming from taking place in the city…
Weatherly: But the show will have a lot of international locations that we will reveal later, and international casting that is going to be absolutely stellar. We’re part of that as executive producers. The final decision is elsewhere, but we have a lot of input.
De Pablo: It’s the toughest thing because now we’re on the other side. And so as executive producers, you get to see all of this incredible casting, these auditions that are coming in and you’re just baffled. First of all, you have incredible appreciation for what we do. You go, ‘Wow, it’s tough to be an actor,’ but it’s also tough because now you have to make a decision on really highly qualified people. They’re all really good when you get to that level. And so it’s making us respect the thing that we’ve been doing for a long time.
Trust is a big theme of the series, with the actors joking that the show should be titled NCIS: Trust No One…
De Pablo: We’ve had these funny bits of conversation regarding that particular title. The idea of trust and the idea of how this relationship moves forward is something that was intriguing to us as actors, and also it’s something the fans have been asking about forever, and the questions were always the same. They’re always like, ‘Whatever happened to Tony and Ziva? Do you think they’ll ever get back together? Where are they?’
All of a sudden, we had the opportunity to put it together into a show, so we’re trying to address all these questions and we’re trying to address the idea of trust and how they move forward and try to make things work, while also parenting a very young girl and having a lot of challenges thrown at them.
Weatherly: Trust doesn’t mean truth, it doesn’t mean honesty. Just because I’m telling you the truth doesn’t mean you can trust me. If you have a daughter who’s going to question the story [of where her mother has been], then what are your relationships like? Where do you stand with the truth and who do you trust? These are the core principles of the show. It’s exciting.
Weatherly and de Pablo may be reuniting on screen, but they have been friends for more than 20 years…
Weatherly: The show [NCIS] taught me a lot of stuff, and I had a huge journey. Friendships can be difficult in showbusiness because it’s very much like one-use cups or something – you just throw it out and you don’t really have a sense of sustainability. It’s not like normal life. It’s like camp friends, for the summer, and then you’ll never see them again.
De Pablo: But you never got rid of me.
Weatherly: You’re my forever camp friend.
De Pablo: There’s also this really wonderful thing that happens with the passage of time, which is roots get bigger. So even if you have an issue today, for example, I can rely on 20 years of friendship to be able to get me through. It doesn’t mean you won’t have conflict, because you are talking about two very passionate creatures. But we have a friendship that’s gone through many things that have to do with life, and not so much work. We’ve seen each other go through really massive things.
They both also share the same approach to acting…
De Pablo: What I’ve always said about working with Michael is that it’s always refreshingly unpredictable, and I think he also likes the fact I love to play. Even though sometimes I come across as very put together, my favourite thing is to go into kid land and play. We relate on that level, like, at our core, we’re kids, we love play. So I respect the boundaries and the structure of that. He has a tougher time with the structure and the boundaries. But at the end of the day, we both like to play.
tagged in: CBS Studios, Cote de Pablo, Michael Weatherly, NCIS, NCIS: Tony & Ziva, Paramount, Paramount Global Content Distribution