Cote de Pablo Confessed Why Filming NCIS 1 Scene Was a Total Nightmare

NCIS may have given Cote de Pablo a successful long-lasting career on TV, but it also gave her some major reasons for panic attacks.

The show’s fans recently got a sneak peek into behind-the-scenes details about the actress’ weird audition for the role of Ziva David, where she felt like her co-star Michael Weatherly was onto something trying to sabotage her test read.

However, it’s not all over yet for more stories from de Pablo, who quit the original show several years ago, but soon is set to reprise her most prominent role in NCIS spinoff titled NCIS: Tony & Ziva.

Luckily, potential viewers of the future series don’t have to stay away from the beloved franchise now that all those never-heard-before stories are being revealed by the NCIS podcast.

The program hosted by Cote de Pablo and Tony DiNozzo’s actor Michael Weatherly is a weekly reminder for all fans to reminisce about the show’s most memorable moments during a conversation with someone involved in NCIS’ production as a cast or crew member.

Both actors, who are just a couple of months away from bringing their characters back to the screens, have recently welcomed NCIS: Los Angeles actor Eric Christian Olsen to their podcast, with the talk eventually going back to de Pablo’s weird experience of filming particular NCIS scenes.

During the conversation, Michael Weatherly recalled a moment when his co-star got confused by the filming schedule just because she had no clue that those scenes were meant to be filmed on the same day.

According to the actor, the crew’s reminder about her moving on to an autopsy scene with David McCallum’s Ducky caught de Pablo off guard since she didn’t have her lines prepared by that time. The actress’ theatrical experience was probably to blame in this case as she couldn’t imagine the TV work schedule to be that different.

De Pablo then went on to tell the rest of the story that had quite a happy ending:

“I genuinely didn't know… I was game, I would go home, I would study. I was like the biggest geek. I was like a theater geek. I was like, ‘What are my lines?! Drill them, drill them!’ So they're like, ‘Look, Cote, we're going to start with the scene tomorrow morning, go home, learn it and we're just going to pick up. Don't worry about it.’ I didn't sleep 'cause I was like, now I'm like all paranoid, and I go in the next day and I do it.”

Considering that the scene was later inserted in one of the season 3 episodes which happened to be the first ones for Ziva David, there’s reason to believe that the actress eventually nailed it and secured herself the role for many years to come.

Despite the fact that the character was written off the original show, de Pablo is set to reprise her role in NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which will premiere this fall on Paramount+.

Source: Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch