Daniela Ruah Talks Doing Double Duty Tonight in the NCISverse

Tonight is a very special night in the NCISverse. First, the 1,000^th episode of the franchise is airing as part of NCIS, then the 1001 episode will air, and it will be the 51^st episode of NCIS: Hawaii—and it was directed by NCIS: Los Angeles star Daniela Ruah, who played Kensi Blye for all 14 years of that series.

“It was a wonderful, wonderful thing to be asked to do,” she says of appearing in the 1,000^th episode. “It was a complete honor. Being on NCIS: L.A. since the pilot and now being able to just give a little touch on the 1,000th episode, it’s crazy that our show participated in about a third of that.

Daniela’s appearance on “The Thousand Yards” episode of NCIS is brief, but she had an expanded role on NCIS: Hawaii as the director of “The Next Thousand” episode, which is a great title, setting up the continuation of the franchise, but actually has a totally different meaning, which we won’t spoil.

The story begins when a Marine is found murdered while training on the Big Island, and the NCIS team tracks the suspect deep in the woods and discovers a disturbing secret, but, of course, there’s more to it.

It’s insane.”

“The episode will dive into a type of crime that we have not seen on this show before,” Daniela tells Parade. “I think our characters confront some serious feelings about it. Also, we do what I think this franchise of shows does best, which is dive into characters’ personal lives and personal journeys and kind of plant those seeds for further episodes to watch those stories flourish.

“That’s really when the relationship that is created between the actor and the director really comes into the most important play,” Daniela explains. “Vanessa and I have a great relationship, we’ve had a good relationship since the crossover, which is when I met her in person for the first time. We just kind of clicked. I think she and I have a lot in common as humans.”

So, Vanessa was open about the similarity and was willing to dig into her own experiences and bring that to the table for what she was being asked to portray in the script.

“I said, ‘Hey, when we’re working on this, can I get personal about this? Can I get personal with you while we’re working these scenes?’ She was like, ‘Absolutely, yes, whatever you need.’ There were many moments where I was actually crying off camera with her. I do, I get into it.”

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“I absolutely love working with actors,” she says. “I think slowly but surely that’s becoming my favorite part of directing, is just navigating different actors’ experiences, needs. Some people are like, ‘Tell me what you want.’ Other people are like, ‘Let me just do it and then if you need to adjust something adjust it then.’ Just having human interactions with actors, I love that.”

During our Zoom chat, Daniela spoke more about her first time directing NCIS: Hawaii and being reunited with LL COOL J and tells a funny story about her invite to reprising her Kensi role on the 1,000^th episode.

This was your first time directing Hawaii.? How is it different from directing L.A.? What new elements come into play for you as a director?

I think the most obvious one would be that this is, of course, an entirely new crew and a new cast. So, you always have to earn everybody’s trust, which to me as a director is the most important thing. I think once I earn people’s trust then everybody’s on the same playing field and we can start moving in the same direction to fulfill a vision.

That was the biggest thing for me. Honestly, I felt like it happened really fast. I knew some of the cast already because we’d done our crossovers and over the years we bump into people, so I was very happy to see this cast. And then in terms of the crew, they were incredible. Obviously, I come from a procedural like this one, so I’m very used to the pacing and what’s important to prioritize. I don’t know, I fell in love with everybody. I called my husband after day one and I was like, “We should move here. This is amazing.”

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