‘NCIS’: Cote de Pablo Felt Her Exit From the Series Was ‘Rushed’
NCIS star Cote de Pablo shocked many when she left the series after eight seasons. For the sake of her fans, de Pablo hoped that her character, Ziva David, would at least be granted an honorable exit. But in hindsight, she couldn’t help but be disappointed with how Ziva went out.
What Cote de Pablo really felt about her ‘NCIS’ exit
De Pablo was always a bit mum on the details about her NCIS exit. It wasn’t just difficult for her to leave the show, but for the show’s producers as well. CBS CEO at the time, Les Moonves, tried to lure de Pablo back with an undisclosed amount of money.
“We offered Cote de Pablo a lot of money, and then we offered her even more money, because we really didn’t want to lose her,” Moonves once told CBS News.
But, of course, that didn’t work. So the NCIS showrunner back then, Gary Glasberg, hoped that fans could take solace in knowing Ziva was given a proper sendoff.
“We wanted to give her the most graceful, emotional payoff we could,” Glasberg said in an interview with TV Guide. “It was a pretty magical moment. Cote took it and ran with it, and the emotion you’ll see on screen is very real.”
However, looking back on it, de Pablo felt her character’s departure could’ve been handled better than it was.
“I think it was rushed. I would have liked a little bit of closure,” she once told TV Line.
Still, de Pablo at least enjoyed her last moments on the show with her co-star and onscreen partner Michael Weatherly.
“But I think all in all I could not be more blessed, because I got a chance to be with my ‘love,’ Michael,” she said. “Any time you put Michael and I together there’s going to be a spark, and there’s going to be real honesty, and for that I am forever grateful. Because in that sense there was a sense of conclusion as far as what [the characters] felt for each other.”
How Michael Weatherly felt ‘NCIS’ handled Cote de Pablo’s exit
Weatherly and de Pablo quickly became almost as close as their onscreen characters were. The two were never involved romantically, but they had so much chemistry in the series that they made a very believable couple. In the midst of her departure, Weatherly seemed to think that the NCIS writers did a good job writing de Pablo off. He also reassured fans they’d get some kind of closure regarding the simmering romance between their characters.
“As far as the ‘Tiva’ fans, they’ll get a resolution they’ve awaited for years,” Weatherly said. “There is a level of confession. And if it takes a big change like this to stir things up, it’s all for the better. I’m a fan of the show.”
At the same time, Weatherly felt the show’s foundation was too stable for de Pablo’s exit to disrupt its flow.
“We have great writers and a remarkable core DNA that Bellisario created, and somehow it’s so sturdy that it withstands all of these changes,” he said in a separate TV Line interview.
The actor also expressed his own excitement about Tony DiNozzo and Ziva finally getting some kind of resolution.
“I think that for DiNozzo and for me as an actor, that ‘holding pattern’ has been incredibly fun to play — I love working with Cote, she’s awesome — but also it’s been eight years, and we haven’t dealt with it.” It will be dealt with,” Weatherly said.
Why Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly returned for ‘NCIS: Tony and Ziva’
De Pablo couldn’t stay away from NCIS forever. She returned to the long-running procedural after her six-year hiatus and found herself thrust into a major storyline. Now, she and Weatherly will be reprising their roles in NCIS: Tony and Ziva. As the title implies, the spinoff will explore Tony’s relationship with Ziva even further and will take a more international approach than the original series.
Although both de Pablo and Weatherly left NCIS behind at one point, neither could pass up the opportunity to delve into this new story.
“I think the idea of trust, and the idea of how this relationship moves forward is something that was intriguing to us as actors,” de Pablo simply told Variety not too long ago.
