When Mark Harmon stepped away from his role as Agent Gibbs on NCIS in 2021, Gary Cole took his place as team leader, Agent Parker. Now, Cole is sharing the details about his “loner” character.
When Director Vance offered Parker Gibbs’ old job, Cole said his character wondered, “Is this where I really want to be? The stakes couldn’t be higher. The [team is] on a perpetual stress train.”
Movieguide® reported in November 2021:
Harmon officially left the show in episode four of the newest season. Cole recently shared his thoughts on acting as the replacement for the iconic, fan-favorite agent.
While he does not believe anyone can replace Harmon or Gibbs, Cole said that he wants to portray a quality character for NCIS fans to enjoy.
“Parker isn’t overly chatty, but he is more verbal,” Cole told TVInsider. “He’s not as old school; he tries to get his hands on new tech gadgets and impress everybody. He’s trying to fit in with the rest of the team. Although he may be reluctant to voice it, he admires that Gibbs breaks rules. Parker bends them. We’ll see if it gets to the point of breaking.”
Parker didn’t get along well with everyone at first, but he changed in order to be a good leader.
“Parker, by nature, is a loner. Out of instinct, he doesn’t trust anybody. But he’s got to make compromises and do two things: watch his back and trust other people with his life,” Cole explained to TV Insider.
“At first, Parker was adversarial with everybody, but Vance gave him the benefit of the doubt. [Vance] is a trademark good leader, firm but fair, and that’s what Parker tries to be.”
Comic Book Resources pointed out that Parker isn’t like Gibbs, to the show’s benefit.
“His not being Gibbs is what makes him memorable and has kept NCIS moving forward,” CBR said.
In Season 19, Episode 11, “All Hands,” Parker called his crew “my team”—a significant milestone.
“The circumstances were so black and white. People’s lives were on the line. Being in charge, he was responsible for them,” he explained about the team’s ordeal with terrorists.
“Before then, the team had reason to not necessarily have a lot of confidence or trust in him because Gibbs had been there so long that they were used to one thing, and Parker was not that. In this episode, he’s proving himself to the team,” he said.
Two weeks before they shot the episode, Cole tore his meniscus. He had to sit on an “apple box” with a large bag of ice whenever he got the chance.
The actor explained how his character views his team now.
“Parker looks to get McGee’s take on the big picture, zeroing in on whoever they’re looking for, whatever they’re trying to solve. He knows that in Torres he’s got a guy that will go the distance, go undercover, do the dirty…work, and to some degree [so will] Knight,” Cole said.
“With Torres, he sees recklessness he’d rather wasn’t there. There is a concern that Torres is going to go off a cliff because he wants to do things that are extreme,” the MONK star said.
When it comes to Cole’s interests compared to his character’s, they don’t have much in common.
“None of his hobbies interest me whatsoever. I like a good doughnut as much as the next guy, so maybe that’s the closest,” he laughed.
“[The hobbies are] a distraction from the job and maybe the inability to be somebody who’s more social or comfortable around people. He is a guy who can’t sit still. He’s not somebody who reflects a lot—until he doesn’t have a choice if something is weighing on him.”
In Episode 15 of Season 19, the show reveals that Parker went to juvenile prison in his younger days.
“He was on the other side, albeit in a juvenile crime, and got close to a path that would have, if not destroyed his life, really altered it,” Cole said. “He chose the path of law enforcement, and he takes it very seriously. What makes the character interesting is stuff you don’t see on a frequent basis. It’s bubbling underneath.”
With three love interests, Parker fails to stick with a committed relationship in the series.
“If there’s a theme running through that, it’s reluctance,” Cole shared. “Maybe that traces back to the episode with his ex-partner that he wounded. That’s a significant piece that has something to do with his reluctance to be close to anyone, and certainly, with a woman in the most intimate way. It’s on the back burner.”
In “Old Wounds,” Season 20, Episode 14, Parker accidentally shoots and paralyzes his former FBI partner. After the accident, his partner writes him an emotional letter, which Parker reads aloud.
“It’s as emotional a scene as I’ve done in quite a long time, and I was able to do that in a more effective way than maybe I ever had—just because of life experience and working as an actor,” he said.
“I wanted Parker to get the letter and read it back to his partner, almost in anger at first, and then discover the turn [to forgiveness] that the letter makes almost as if it just kind of overtook him and he didn’t expect it. That’s what we wound up doing. It brought some closure to whatever Parker had been holding on to over that,” Cole explained.
Cole dived into another emotional relationship, the one Parker and his father, Roman, share.
“We don’t know much about what went on when he was younger, but I think at one point he was yearning for his dad’s attention or approval,” he said about Parker. “He loves his father, but it doesn’t come easy between the two of ’em.”
“I liked the way those scenes were written, especially Parker trying to set him up in a new apartment and Roman finally relents and gives his son credit and tells him he’s proud of him. That means a lot. Parker was more exasperated with his father than anything else that ever happened on the show, which has a real-life feeling,” he explained.
One of Parker’s traits is that he likes to impersonate people.
“Parker does have a gift for b–s–ttery, if that’s a word,” Cole said. “He’s comfortable in that. He was introduced [to the series] as this wacko guy who was a lone wolf and hiding the fact that he was working for the FBI and closing in on the same person as NCIS. He will pose as somebody else to get what he wants.”
Screen Rant reported that Parker will be a main focus in future Season 21 episodes, and he’ll be cast in a comedic light. NCIS showrunners David North and Steven D. Binder teased that he’ll also pose as a surgeon.
