Mark Harmon Once Shared That ‘NCIS’ Ran for Years Without a Script
Mark Harmon scored big when he ended up being cast in the hugely successful television series NCIS. Like most long-running television shows, NCIS experienced significant change and growth during its years on air. One of those changes included actually writing scripts for the show as it went on.
Mark Harmon once explained how the actors worked on ‘NCIS’ without being given a script
Harmon has been a part of NCIS since its inception. His name was floated around with a list of other A-listers at the time like Harrison Ford and Kevin Bacon. But Harmon was the actor that NCIS made a serious effort in trying to recruit. After casting director Susan Bluestein suggested Harmon, however, others behind the show figured he’d pass on the series.
“Mark was a big deal, and everybody thought, ‘We’ll make an offer to Mark Harmon, and when we don’t get him, let’s go through the list of who else we could get.’ Mark had a meeting with Don Bellisario, and they hit it off, and Mark agreed to do it. All of a sudden, the show took on much more importance in my mind,” casting head Peter Golden told The Hollywood Reporter not too long ago.
Harmon’s casting as Jethro Gibbs was stated to make an impression on the show’s targeted audience. But the show was far from the ratings-hit it would eventually become in its later seasons. Producer Mark Horowitz shared that the show didn’t hit its commercial stride until after its third season, when it was sold to the USA Network.
Coincidentally, the modest results of the show’s first seasons coincided with a very unusual approach NCIS had with storytelling. According to an interview Harmon did with Larry King, NCIS didn’t have a script until later on in the series.
“We used to not have them on this show. For four years we did this show without script,” Harmon said.
Harmon clarified that the NCIS cast went off little information to do their jobs.
“You had sides, pages. You read maybe two acts of a show and you went to work. Then the scenes came in piecemeal, and you did them as you go on,” he said.
Mark Harmon once shared his ‘NCIS’ moments were both scripted and unscripted
Harmon asserted that the NCIS crew built up a lot of faith with each other over the years. The benefits meant that the actors didn’t always have to stick to the script.
“We’ve worked together for a long time,” Harmon said. “And it’s one of the great treats of this show to block a rehearsal in general terms with actors that have been there over 200 episodes. And you trust. You trust people jumping off in different directions to try to mine things that may or may not work. And that’s how we work there. That’s how we’ve always worked there. So the answer to your question is that some of those things were scripted and some of them weren’t. And yet some of them stuck and some of them didn’t.”
Harmon believed this flexible way of performing helped the show continue to stand out among other procedural shows with similar formats.
“But it really brings the format to what makes this show different. I mean we all are open. We all speak our mind. We all team up to get this done. And I could take any episode and any direction and point to numerous points in the episode that came from wherever they came is not as important as that they were. So that’s how we work,” Harmon once told the TV Addict.
Mark Harmon’s ‘Gibbs Slap’ was completely unscripted
Harmon’s ‘Gibbs Slap’ has become a memorable staple of the character and the entire show. The actor’s character had a propensity to slap his co-workers in the head as a means of keeping them in line and focused. But the popular quirk was initially an unscripted moment brought on by instinct. And Harmon’s former co-star Michael Weatherly was the slap’s first recipient.
“Michael is a hugely talented actor, as is every member of this cast. My memory of when that happened, we were doing a scene,” Harmon once told Premiere. “And he was on a Navy ship and he was talking to a female petty officer. I think this was in year one, early. And he was doing what he does, which is sometimes stay on script and sometimes not. I just reached over and smacked him. I tried to put him back on line. It was an instinct. It wasn’t thought, I didn’t think about it, I just did it.”
