After Caitlin Todd was killed in the NCIS Season 2 finale, Ziva David stepped in to take her place on the team after she killed her own half-brother, recurring antagonist Ari Haswari. Cote de Pablo played Ziva for eight seasons as a series regular on the popular CBS show, during which time her character and Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo built a ‘will they, won’t they’ dynamic. Now for the first in over a decade, these two are finally being reunited onscreen for the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva, but these two are more than just actors leading a Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series together. De Pablo shared how during the making of Tony & Ziva, Weatherly has been her “greatest asset” in a specific way, and it makes me even more pleased these two are sharing the screen again.
De Pablo and Weatherly host Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch together, and during the episode where they chatted with Leon Vance actor Rocky Carroll, the actress mentioned how she’s had friends ask her how she feels revisiting the NCIS world, and she’s answered that, “it’s going to be so much fun” because she’s getting to re-explore an old character she really cares about. She continued:
I remember saying one thing, which I really, truly mean. I said, ‘Look, I may have good days, I may have bad days… but I have Michael.’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, but you worked with him for like eight years.’ And I said, ‘Yes, but we’ve grown up and we’re older and we have a different appreciation of life and the world and the work itself.’ And I said, ‘I have Michael, and that, to me, is my greatest asset.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva won’t be Cote de Pablo’s first time has reprised Ziva since exiting early into NCIS Season 11, as she later appeared in the Season 16 finale and several Season 17 episodes. In Weatherly’s case, he exited the main cast in the Season 13 finale, then cameoed as Tony in the Season 21 episode paying tribute to the late David McCallum. However, as already mentioned, this spinoff is the first time she and Weatherly have gotten to work together since the good ol’ days when these two were on NCIS’ main cast together.
A lot has changed since then, so although there’s obviously an air of familiarity with Tony and Ziva being side by side again, they’re also coming at this project with different personal and professional perspectives. So in that way, de Pablo feels comfortable leaning on Weatherly for support and talking things out with him if she’s having a difficult time, and I’m so glad they have that kind of relationship with each other. In her words:
But in a way, I do feel that like if I’m having a delicate day or if I’m feeling overwhelmed about something or whatever… I don’t mean to say I’m just going to put it on Michael, but I do feel that I could come up to you and say like, ‘Hey, man, I’m having one of those days.’ Before, maybe I wouldn’t talk about it because maybe you would just… ‘Hey, put on the face and just pretend like nothing’s happening and just soldier on.’ Now I feel like I could approach that differently and I could just say, ‘Hey, I’m having this and just allow it to kind of be.’
Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo have been shooting NCIS: Tony & Ziva in Budapest since June, and Weatherly recently shared a photo on social media of him and showrunner John McNamara on set with some camels nearby. The spinoff will follow Tony and Ziva being forced to go on the run across Europe after Tony’s security company is attacked. Weatherly and de Pablo’s co-stars include Isla Gie, Amita Suman, Maximilian Osinski, Nassima Benchicou, Julian Ovenden, Terence Maynard, Lara Rossi and James D’Arcy.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva doesn’t have a release date yet, though it’s reasonable to assume it’ll arrive on Paramount+ sometime in 2025. Meanwhile, NCIS Season 22 and the prequel NCIS: Origins premiere Monday, October 14 on the 2024 TV schedule, and NCIS: Sydney Season 2 is also on the way.