NCIS: Tony & Ziva’s Cote de Pablo revealed she rejected an intimacy coordinator for her scenes with onscreen love interest Michael Weatherly.
De Pablo, 45, was asked about whether an intimacy coordinator was brought in for their Paramount+ spinoff series, to which she told TV Insider on Monday, July 28, “Did not need one. They asked me first, I think because I’m a female and blah, blah, blah, and I said, ‘I don’t need one. Thank you for offering.’”
The actress said she felt comfortable with Weatherly, 57, after previously working with him on NCIS.
“Michael and I have a lot of trust with each other and are great friends,” she added. “So, when it comes to shooting these things we don’t want to be micromanaged. We like to explore it, and we trust each other enough that we allow that to happen.”
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Weatherly, for his part, agreed with de Pablo.
“I said, ‘Whatever Cote wants.’ Love scenes are complicated because that level of nonverbal communication — you kiss someone the way you want to be kissed or you touch someone the way you want to be touched — that is a deep level of communication,” he noted. “Physical interaction starts with trust. Luckily, Cote and I do not have an issue in that area. We had to do that right out of the gate in [NCIS’ ‘Under Covers’] episode.”
NCIS: Tony & Ziva is a 10-episode series that “picks up after Ziva’s supposed death when Tony left the NCIS team to go raise their daughter. Years later, Ziva was discovered alive, leading her to complete one final mission with NCIS before she was reunited with Tony and their daughter in Paris.”
According to the official synopsis, Tony (Weatherly) and Ziva (de Pablo), who have been raising daughter Tali together, must “go on the run across Europe” together when Tony’s security company is attacked. The fictional couple has to “try to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.”
In addition to de Pablo and Weatherly, NCIS: Tony & Ziva stars Amita Suman, Maximilian Osinski, Lara Rossi, Isla Gie, Nassima Benchicou, Terence Maynard, Julian Ovenden and James D’Arcy.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva‘s release date comes more than a year after the series was announced by Paramount+ in February 2024. Weatherly originally starred on NCIS as Tony DiNozzo from seasons 1 to 13, while de Pablo joined the cast as Ziva David in season 3 and departed in season 11.
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The spinoff is Weatherly’s first major series regular role since CBS’ Bull, which ran from 2016 to 2022. During his time on the show, Weatherly was accused of sexual harassment by costar Eliza Dushku. Dushku, 44, received a $9.5 million settlement from CBS after she alleged she was the subject of several inappropriate comments made by Weatherly.
“Weatherly had a habit of exaggerated eye-balling and leering at me; once, he leaned into my body and inhaled, smelling me in a dramatic swoon,” Dushku wrote in a December 2018 Boston Globe op-ed. “As was caught on tape, after I flubbed a line, he shouted in my face, ‘I will take you over my knee and spank you like a little girl.’”
Weatherly, for his part, apologized in a statement to The New York Times in December 2018.
“During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script,” he said at the time. “When Eliza told me that she wasn’t comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza.”
NCIS: Tony & Ziva will premiere on Paramount+ Thursday, September 4, with three episodes.
