‘They bring out in each other the best, and they probably bring out in each other the worst.’
For Cote de Pablo, Paramount+’s NCIS: Tony & Ziva feels a little bit like destiny. The show, which brings de Pablo’s Ziva David and Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo back together for the first time since the two characters departed NCIS over a decade ago, has been a dream of fans for almost as long as the two characters were off our screens. And de Pablo is clear that the show came together “because a lot of people wanted it.” But she also thinks it was meant to be, in a way.
After all, despite all the setup NCIS did with Ziva and Tony, there was never really any significant payoff with the two of them on-screen. Just vague words on a tarmac, a daughter they never got to raise together when she was little, and a controversial off-screen goodbye that fans never even knew had happened until Tali showed up.
Now, that’s all changing. NCIS: Tony & Ziva‘s first three episodes, titled “No Country Is Safe,” “No Friend of Mine,” and “Cover Story,” have already delivered more in the way of romance for these two characters than NCIS ever did. And with seven more episodes to go, there’s a chance for a happy ending in the rest of this tale. Or, perhaps, a happy beginning, as de Pablo doesn’t seem to believe the show is ending anytime soon.
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In the episodes, we find a Ziva and Tony who have been raising their daughter Tali in Paris like divorced parents, aka together but not together. But when Tony’s security company is attacked and the two are framed for a crime they did not commit, Ziva and Tony are forced to go on the run while trying to figure out who is after them. What do you do when you’re forced to confront why you trust someone with your life but not with your heart? It looks like Tony and Ziva are about to find out.
Below, Cote de Pablo breaks down the first three episodes of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, that steamy flashback scene between Tony and Ziva, the “love” their characters share, and how she and Michael Weatherly developed a new rhythm and chemistry built on the connection they already shared.
One of the things people were most looking forward to was that first reunion between Ziva, Tony, and Tali. We get to see that scene in flashbacks, and it’s great and romantic and touching, even if it then goes badly because of Ziva’s issues. What is going through their heads in that moment?
Cote de Pablo: I thought that was really beautiful. Both characters are… It’s very funny how Tony and Ziva always surprise me because the moment you feel Ziva’s going to go someplace, Tony’s right there, sort of emotionally going through it. And the moment you think Tony’s going to go through it, Ziva’s going through it. So, sort of like they’re doing the feeling for each other. You know, in a way, they sort of complete each other. And that’s kind of the beauty of it. I think it’s the reason why it works and the reason why the fans were always sort of invested.
I think Tony’s really able to see past all of that kind of strong defense mechanism that she has, which is the shutdown defense mechanism, the “you’re not going to see anything, I’m not going to give you anything” kind of thing. And he gets to see through that. And I think it’s the same thing for her. She gets to see past all of that kind of “I’m really funny and I’m going to deflect” defense mechanism [that Tony has]. And yeah, I mean, they see the wounds in each other. And in spite of that, they love each other.
That moment sets the stage for everything else, and I agree — it solidifies their love for each other. But this is also a show you can watch without all the years of NCIS, I feel like. And yet there’s something else, special, for those people who’ve been here from the beginning.
de Pablo: Yeah, I’m right with you. I think there is something there for the people, obviously, who have invested for many years and want to get all of their questions answered. And yet you don’t really have to see the older episodes to sort of see this storyline and this love story take place. I remember asking Michael when he saw the episodes a while ago, because he saw them before me.And I said: “So, what do you think? What do you think?” And I was sort of excited and curious.
And he said, “I think you’ll like them,” and I said, “Well, why?” And he said, “Because it’s unlike many things I’ve seen. It’s a massive, massive story.We have to answer a lot of the questions. But at the end of the day, it’s kind of a little bit of a fairy tale.” Because it is a love story. It is something that people want to believe in.It is something that people really want these two to have.
Marcell Piti/Paramount+
There’s a lot of emphasis on Ziva’s mental health in the first three episodes. She’s going to therapy, she’s trying to be better for her daughter, for Tony. But we also see Ziva trying to be better for herself, something we really hadn’t seen before. Walk us through the decision to have that focus for the character.
de Pablo: I think there’s an awareness that came after the arc in 2019, in which she goes back to NCIS, and she talks about anxiety and PTSD.We’ve never really gone into exactly what’s happened. I don’t think that exploration ever happened. But we do know that really traumatic things have happened to her, including the deaths of her brother and the death of her father.
She’s had quite a complicated life with lots of loss. So, it’s inevitable for her to have trust issues, one, and for her to really have issues with love, because love becomes this frightening thing. For her to be able to go back and do the work with a therapist that she obviously feels comfortable with and has built this trust with means that she’s on the path to really healing some of those very heavy-duty wounds.
I don’t think the person changes, meaning I think she’ll take that pain with her, but somehow, she’s able to shape it in a way that she can live with it in a comfortable way, as opposed to a detrimental way.
The show doesn’t start with Tony and Ziva together romantically, and yet it builds up to that very quickly. Was that always the plan? To deliver what we never got to see on NCIS?
de Pablo: Yeah, and you definitely see it. I mean, in Episodes 3 and 4, you definitely see the reason why it works. The sort of childlike giddiness when they’re looking into each other’s eyes and they lock lips, and the silliness that happens when that kind of love overpowers you.
It was really great to explore that with a person like Michael, because there is that trust thing that we have, and we are very much like children in our curiosity, so we still surprise each other, which is really great.
And we’re seeing Tony and Ziva interact in ways we’ve never seen before. They’re coparenting. We see them together romantically in flashbacks. And all of that is new; we never saw them in a relationship. As not just an actor, but an executive producer of the show, what exactly did you want to achieve there?
de Pablo: Michael [Weatherly] calls it Dracula surfing. You know, it’s like if you’re going to call the show Dracula Surfing and you show Dracula surfing on the 10th episode, then you’ve been dragged along for too long. We’re not going to Dracula surf you.
You actually get to see what you’ve been waiting for a long time. And so, I think there’s a payoff for the audience, certainly the people who have been waiting for this sort of romantic thing to happen. You do get to see it on the screen, but then we break it down, and we go and we show you where they actively are today in the present. And what they’ve had to go through to sort of rekindle that, or at least try to be on the same page in order to get through these challenges that are coming their way that compromise the security of their daughter.
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That includes a steamier scene than anything we’ve seen from Tony and Ziva. How was it filming that and getting back into the rhythm of these characters and this relationship, while still being faithful to the growth of these two characters?
de Pablo: I think that was a very organic thing for us to explore because we are older, too. So, it is seen through the eyes of people who are now expressing that part of themselves in a different way. I did feel like that was achieved.
As you know, sets are full of people, so there is no sense of, oh, let’s do this in private. So, it was a closed set and we had a director there and we had a writer there and then we had a couple of people, but no more than maybe three or four. And then it was just Michael and me. So even though it was quite technical, we knew where we had to go in order to make that be what it was.
We knew that it had to be romantic. We knew that it had to have a sense of fun. We knew that it had to have a sense of curiosity and that it had to have passion, and that in all of those moments are beats that are found in different ways.
And to that, you have to add that Tony and Ziva now have a daughter, and not a young kid, but a daughter at an age to have opinions and be involved in things. How was it to play not just the relationship, but the family unit with Tali, especially as Tony and Ziva go on the run?
de Pablo: We were working with a very talented young lady called Isla Gie. And to our complete surprise, she is not only a phenomenal actor, which we knew because we tested her, but she’s also a gymnast, and she loves stunt sequences. So, at one point, Michael and I looked at each other and we were like, “What the… You know? Like, how did we get so lucky?” She’s the perfect daughter for us. She wants to do her own stunts. She’s coming up to me and she’s like, “Cote, how do you do that?” Whether it’s a physical stunt or it’s an emotional beat. And she’s like, “How do you just do that?” And the greatest thing about Isla is that she may seem like she’s very level-headed and very grounded, but there’s a very curious person there that’s constantly watching and just taking everything in.
So, I mean, she’s light-years away from so many young actors that I’ve met because she understands that it’s about really listening and watching. And that made it easy for us to play all of the stuff that we have to play together. She’s really in her own lane, and she’s playing her own thing, and she’s got her own strengths. And yet when you see her in the company of Tony and Ziva, you know what she gets from Ziva, and you know what she gets from Tony. And that’s kind of a really cool thing that happened, like I said, very organically.
And also, you’re going to get to see more of her. Episodes 5 and 6 are phenomenal, and they’re where you really get to see who our daughter is.
This all ties to Ziva as a mother, something we also haven’t experienced. How does she handle her relationship with Tali while trying to process her guilt about leaving her with Tony and not being there for a long period of her life? Because it seems Tali is doing better than Ziva is in these episodes.
de Pablo: I don’t think you ever get past some things. When I speak of healing, I don’t think she ever gets healed of whatever the pain of having to make that choice was. I think you learn to live with it. I think you learn to, in a way, accept that you tried making the best decision at the moment in which you had to make it, which was incredibly traumatic.
I think she wants to live in the present. I think she doesn’t want to fall back on past mistakes. I think it’s very important to her and certainly to Tony to be able to raise this kid and learn from the mistakes that they saw their own parents make. And I think they’re trying to be the best versions of themselves so that they can then pass on a healthier understanding of family to this little girl.
And I think that in itself is the greatest gift you can do for any child. Try to become the best version of you so that you don’t pass on trauma, you know, and that’s something that we have the great big privilege of exploring, and hopefully that we get to explore some more. We’re tackling, which is really what Michael and I wanted to explore, dysfunction and family patterns, and trying to dissect them and to be able to bring a little light to that and to go into it.
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Ziva clearly has trust issues, and how could she not? But these three episodes make it clear she trusts Tony with her life, and with Tali’s life. She just doesn’t trust him with her heart. Can she get there? What’s stopping her right now?
de Pablo: That’s a really good observation, because I think the push and pull between these two characters has everything to do with that. I think Tony’s potentially the only person that could really, really hurt her. And I think that in itself, in exploring where that fear lives and how real it is to a person like her, and how devastating it could be if it didn’t work out. That’s the demon she tackles. It’s her own fear of it not working out. And we see her trying to work through it in these episodes.
They bring out in each other the best, and they probably bring out in each other the worst.
They’ve just been through so much together!
de Pablo: Yeah, they sort of make it through, you know what I mean? But then they have to deal with the repercussions of the choices that they have to make along the way and the challenges that they encounter. They’re not dealt an easy one. It’s never easy. But we watch them crawl back to try to make it work. And now that they have a daughter, they’re sort of forced into it because it’s for a higher power, you know?
NCIS: Tony & Ziva‘s first three episodes established the show, the tone, and the world Tony and Ziva are living in. With the show having already done that, is the possibility of bringing in some characters from the NCISverse open in a possible second season?
de Pablo: We’ve never said no to anything like that. But we had to first answer so many questions that we had to focus on actually telling the story of what happened between these two people and where they presently find themselves today. I think anything can happen in the future, and it’s a very exciting thing that fans get to watch the episodes, and that we could potentially explore this again.
And fans get three episodes, too. There’s a payoff right away. No need to wait another week.
de Pablo: I think it was brilliant of them to release three, because that way people understand the idea of this relationship and its exploration. People will definitely get it, you know what I mean? It won’t just be, again, Dracula surfing, as Michael so brilliantly brings it up all the time.
Finally, NCIS: Tony & Ziva is a show fans have been waiting to see for over a decade. Why do you think that is? And what can fans expect going forward?
Cote de Pablo: I think there was no real conclusion. There was a scene at the tarmac where you got to sort of see them manifest some level of love, but the fans never really got to see it.They never got to see them live it. So, it sort of lived in a goodbye that was very heartfelt. And now we get to explore it in a different way, the love and the family.
And it came together, I think, because a lot of people really wanted it. A lot of the fans really wanted it. I think those intentions actually pushed it along. And then of course, destiny played its part.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva is now streaming on Paramount+ with three episodes. New episodes will stream weekly on Thursdays.
