‘NCIS’ Alum Pauley Perrette Confirms She’s Quit Acting: ‘I Want to Be Me’
Abby Sciuoto won’t be making a surprise return to NCIS. Pauley Perrette, who played the quirky forensic scientist on the CBS drama, recently confirmed that she’s quit acting for good.
Pauley Perrette will ‘never again’ return to ‘NCIS’
Perrette appeared in more than 350 episodes of NCIS between 2003 and 2018. Her character was a favorite with many fans, some of whom have held out hope that she might one day return to the show. (NCIS Season 22 premieres Oct. 14.) But in a recent interview, Perrette said there was no chance she’d pop up in future episodes of the procedural.
Perrette, 55, told HELLO! that while she was “not ungrateful” to the benefits that came with her unexpected acting career, she’d “never again” work as an actor.
“I’m a different person now and I want to be here for it – the good and the bad and the painful,” she said.
“I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”
The Abby Sciuto actor wants to ‘find authenticity’
Perrette, who also starred in the short-lived CBS sitcom Broke, said she’d turned her focus to real-life stories by producing documentaries like the recently released Studio One Forever.
“At this point in my life I have this deep need to find authenticity in everything, and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, was a great escape; it’s like a drug because I didn’t have to be me, I could be somebody else. My character didn’t have all of the problems that I was having,” she said.
“It’s why I only watch documentaries, I want the truth,” Perrette added. “For me, going back to being an actor would be taking away from this life of true authenticity that I’m living 100% of the time.”
CBS exec said Pauley Perrette was ‘welcome’ in any ‘NCIS’ show
When Perrette decided to leave NCIS, her character was written off the show in a way that left the door open for a possible return. Abby decided to leave her job and start a charity in London to honor an MI6 agent who saved her life.
In a 2024 interview, CBS Studios president David Stapf said that while there hadn’t been any serious discussions about the character’s return, it was “not a bad idea.”
“We haven’t talked about it or thought about it,” he told Deadline. “We love Pauley, and she’s always welcome in any of the NCIS franchise, but it hasn’t come to us from the writers and/or from her. I kind of was kidding when I said, it’s not a bad idea but it’s genuinely not a bad idea, she was a beloved character.”
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