Mark Harmon & Gary Glasberg

This interview originally appeared in the MIPTV 2012 issue of World Screen.

 

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs leads a team of agents who investigate crimes involving the Navy and Marine Corps. Mark Harmon, who has played Gibbs for nine seasons and has been voted America’s favorite TV star numerous times, heads a group of actors who have made NCIS the number one drama in the U.S. The ultimate team player, Harmon always acknowledges the talents of everyone on the program, including the showrunner, Gary Glasberg.

 

WS: When you first stepped into Gibbs’s shoes, what appealed to you about his character?

HARMON: The answer is the same for all of us. There are four of us who are still here from the original group: myself, Michael Weatherly [Special Agent Tony DiNozzo], Pauley Perrette [Forensics Specialist Abby Sciuto] and David McCallum [Chief M.E. Ducky Mallard]. One thing that attracted us right away to this material was that it was about characters, it had humor—that was always part of it—and then there was a case, but the case was not what drove the show. As an actor I jumped in because there was a character to play that was surprising to me. At the time, I was reading a bunch of different scripts, and when you read a script, you try not to have any expectations. You just read the material and at the end when you turn the last page you have an idea and you try to keep that idea clear. This script was a surprise to me because this was plainly about character and there was humor, and that’s what made a difference.

The name Leroy Jethro Gibbs stopped me—just the name, it makes you tilt your head to the side a little bit and go, “Huh, that’s different.” Then at some point, you embark, you commit and you throw your hat into the ring with others and then you go to work. Ten years down the line, there have been changes in all directions and certainly individual developmental changes in all of our characters. I see it as a very different show from where it started. However, there are pieces of it that remain consistent. I always say that no actor on this show is confused by the role he or she plays. I don’t want to play Abby’s material, and she doesn’t want to play mine. Everybody is individual to the role they play and we all know our jobs. And we’ve done that from the beginning. Everybody has a voice; everybody speaks his or her mind. There are not a lot of secrets on this show. That’s the way the show has developed. If you had the chance to walk on the set, you’d see this is a very unusual workplace: it’s surrounded by people who love their job, they love coming to work and it keeps challenging them. And as long as that keeps happening, there is no reason why we can’t continue to grow.

 

WS: What has given NCIS such success and longevity?

HARMON: We didn’t start that way. We shoot way out in Santa Clarita, California, which is outside Los Angeles. In the beginning, there were advantages of shooting way out there because it was a long drive. The network folks didn’t want to drive out there! We weren’t good enough to get tremendous notice and we weren’t bad enough to get canceled. We just held this mid line and we had the chance to develop. In the beginning, this was really work by fire. We developed slowly over the years and had a chance to build a work foundation from a commonality of people—in front of the camera as well as behind the camera. I said before you couldn’t do this show in the beginning unless you wanted to be there, it was too hard.

WS: I have spoken to showrunners who have said they wish they were working on a 13-episode season as opposed to 24 episodes because it’s so hard to come up with fresh material. Where do you get ideas from?

GLASBERG: I’m not going to argue with that. Twenty-four episodes, which is what we do, is a lot of television. But if we weren’t inspired by the characters that we are working with and by what we are doing, then it would be even harder. I can’t say that there is a specific source we go to for ideas. I’m blessed to have a really strong writing staff that is constantly looking into who our characters are and constantly coming up with clever ideas. We are all well versed in the world of television forensics and we have some fantastic consultants on the show, former NCIS agents, people with forensic backgrounds, as well as a lot of contacts at the Navy and at the Department of Defense. When you have that kind of access, the stories are a little easier to come up with.

HARMON: We’ve had a man named Leon Carroll, Jr. He’s a 30-year NCIS veteran, originally at [the Naval Investigative Service] and before that a Marine Corps major. He’s been here from the very, very beginning, when we were all given different special agents to supervise us. Pauley had a forensic scientist. David had a coroner. I had a special agent and Michael had a special agent. Some actors used them and others didn’t use them at all, but there was always Leon. He’s been a huge help. To back up a step, even before that, from the very, very beginning, this show cared about NCIS as an agency and wanted to portray its work in the right way. That’s important because that feeling still exists.

 

WS: The ratings of new episodes of NCIS on CBS are stellar. Have the reruns on USA Network also broadened the audience?

GLASBERG: There is a lot of theory and hypothesis that have gone into how USA Network and the cable industry have helped spur our continued ratings success. The belief is that people have found the show in reruns on USA, become addicted, and then felt compelled to see the new episodes on CBS. So we are actually pulling new audiences from the people who are viewing it in reruns on USA. I know that’s the case of adult and older demos and also among college kids. I recently met a kid who goes to a prominent university in Massachusetts and he said he has friends who literally run back to the dorms between classes to watch the show in reruns!

 

WS: NCIS has sold phenomenally well around the world, to some 200 countries, hasn’t it?

HARMON: NCIS took off right away in some countries. In the U.S. it took years to build and everybody here is very aware of what it took to get to where we are now. And everyone is very aware of what it will take to stay here. As opposed to feeling that as a burden, this group enjoys that! This group has been extremely patient over the years and they have earned it.

 

My favorite part is when a script comes down the line and you can hear people grumbling about it. We get scripts a week in advance and you hear the department heads start to say, “Wow, this is going to be tough!” [Laughs] Then they strap on a chinstrap and they go to work, and do what they have to do. That’s been the fun of it, to watch this develop into a place where extremely talented professionals are all asked to do the best of what they do without looking over their shoulder.

 

WS: Does the international audience in any way inform or influence the type of stories you tell?

GLASBERG: I absolutely feel like there is an international sensibility that we have to take into account when we are doing stories about a government agency that has an office in every major port in the world. And about how that agency interacts with people in each one of those countries. It’s not just war-torn areas, but every major port. We are constantly talking about story lines that very often take place in other countries and for us it’s just a matter of whether production-wise I can pull off turning Southern California into any one of those locales. That’s the tricky part.

 

WS: Has playing Special Agent Gibbs deepened your appreciation of the work of real-life NCIS agents and of troops deployed to areas of conflict?

HARMON: As an actor, you are playing a role and actors do that differently. Gibbs is based on three very real people I met and actors steal pieces of that, that’s how they compile what they hope to play. But you can’t have done this show for as long as we’ve done it and not have both stories and associations with so many of the agents who do this for real. And yes, I think there is a lot of respect there. And yes, going through Walter Reed National Military Medical Center offers some perspective that is important, not only for an actor in the show, but in truth, for all of us to understand. That weighs on us and that’s part of what we try to do every week, we just try to do good shows.

GLASBERG: I don’t come from much of a political or military background myself, but I have immersed myself tremendously into what I have had access to and really tried to learn as much as I can about the way things work and I feel the same way. It’s important for everyone to have as multidimensional a view of this world as they can because people are putting their lives on the line. We hear all the time that the troops overseas get great pleasure from watching the show, and that means more to me than anything.

 

WS: Many people are saying that we are living in the second golden age of television because of the quality of so many dramas.

GLASBERG: I agree, I think it’s a phenomenal time to be in television. The market has certainly changed since I first joined it. Suddenly cable became a huge part of the options that viewers are given and specific types of programming found their way into cable outlets that wouldn’t necessarily have survived in network. What is wonderful about TV right now is there genuinely is a place for everything. You can have a very unique, daring idea and it will find a home somewhere on cable or on network. Every network has its own style and approach to the types of programming that they like to do. I’ve been very fortunate to be part of the CBS family for a while now. I have a lot of friends who have had prominent feature-film experience, and they all want to be in television right now, because the opportunities are there to try things and do things differently. And the movie business isn’t necessarily offering that.