‘NCIS’: Cote De Pablo Fought Hard to Make Ziva David’s Hair ‘Messy’
NCIS star Cote de Pablo had a few ideas she had for Ziva David after being cast as the agent. One of them was making sure her character’s hair remained unkempt during certain specific situations.
How Cote de Pablo helped influence Ziva David’s look
Fashion was the last thing on Ziva David’s mind. The character was often seen on the show wearing plain clothing only fit for her job. David’s choice of attire was intentional and said a lot about the agent. But it was also something de Pablo wished she could change every once in a while.
“Does it play a role in my vanity? Hmm, yes. Would I love to look at times more presentable on TV? Absolutely,” she once told America Reads Spanish.
But a lot of David’s look resulted from de Pablo’s own creative input. Speaking with Roger Ebert, de Pablo confided that it was important for her character to have a more realistic appearance that women could relate to. It was a thought she helped develop with series creator Don Bellisario.
“I was able to have a couple of years where I was able to develop the character with him,” she said. “And I always wanted to make the character accessible to women. Meaning I didn’t want her to be like this Hollywood thing where she’s always perfect. I fought very hard for her to have, at times, messy hair not done perfectly well. Because that was the real thing. Now, did it help me in the industry? Maybe not. Maybe people were like, why is her hair looking like that? It was important for me to have women relate to the character.”
Cote de Pablo’s upbringing also helped inform Ziva David
New York played a huge role in helping de Pablo shape David. The actor spent her formative years in Brooklyn. And although she didn’t face the same kinds of dangers David did, the situations she did experience gave her David’s strength.
“I think living in New York did it for me,” de Pablo once told CBS. “I still do my own stunts. It’s not something you’re particularly proud of as one gets older. You’re like, ‘Am I being smart? What’s going on here?’ But I think the toughness came from living in New York. Living in Brooklyn back when Brooklyn wasn’t cool back in the day and having to be tough about a lot of situations. I think that informed the character a little bit.”
At the same time, de Pablo couldn’t help but admire her character’s strength. Especially since she felt she would’ve broken down in the same situations that David was in.
“My character’s strength is like mine, to a completely different degree. Losing family members because of a war… I have moments when I just have to hold my heart. But I also have to remember that if I played the character from my point of view, she’d be falling apart all the time. She has to keep it together–it’s the world she grew up in,” de Pablo told Prevention.
Why the hardest part about playing Ziva David was speaking another language
David and de Pablo also have different nationalities and backgrounds. Whereas de Pablo is Hispanic, hailing from Chile, David was an Israeli citizen and former Mossad agent. So de Pablo ran into a little trouble when she had to speak Hebrew for a scene. But it was also an eye-opening experience for de Pablo, who wasn’t a fan of watching non-Hispanic actors recite dialogue in Spanish.
“I had literally forty-eight hours to learn a monologue in Hebrew. That was terrifying. I used to look down on people who were, for example, playing a Latin role because I could tell that they didn’t speak Spanish. It would get on my nerves. Then I realized, ‘Oh, God, I’m in that place right now.’ Everything I had judgments on has turned around and bitten me in the butt,” de Pablo said.
