'NCIS: Tony & Ziva' stars Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo reveal their secret tribute to 'NCIS' O.G. Mark Harmon
NCIS may be on its sixth spinoff, but all roads still lead back to Mark Harmon's Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
Michael Weatherly, Cote de Pablo, and John McNamara, the stars and creator/showrunner of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, were joined by their old NCIS colleague Brian Dietzen at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 on Thursday to preview the new spinoff series.
Shortly after screening the first ten minutes of September's pilot episode, Weatherly and de Pablo offered each other a surreptitious, private hand signal that cracked a smile on both of their faces — arms raised, fists balled and swiveling on their hinges as if knocking on a door with quizzical "I got this" expressions on their faces.
"What was that?" Dietzen asked. In a perfect showcase of their 20-years-and-counting chemistry, the pair responded in unison, "Mark Harmon."
"This is his sign language thing from an episode," Weatherly said, harkening back to the 13 seasons he spent costarring alongside Harmon on NCIS. De Pablo called it "such a great moment," warm memories rising back into her eyes. McNamara added, "I remember seeing the dailies when you guys did that, and I was cracking up for days."
But McNamara, who's only joining the NCIS-verse with Tony & Ziva, was in the dark as much as the rest of the Comic-Con audience at the Indigo Ballroom. Thankfully, de Pablo jumped in with the backstory. "It was a tribute to Gibbs. I think we were in a school, right?" she asked Weatherly, who nodded and added they were also "on a bus." De Pablo continued: "There was a camera, and he was sort of communicating with us. He felt no one was watching him. So since that moment, every time Michael and I — we could be anywhere in the world — and I'll just go," she said, performing the hand gesture, "and we know."
Paramount+ announced NCIS: Tony & Ziva in February, a decade after Weatherly's last episode as an NCIS series regular and 12 years after de Pablo's. Both actors worked closely with Harmon, around whom the NCIS-verse still turns. The franchise announced its fifth spinoff, NCIS: Origins, in early 2024. The series delves into the background of Harmon's legendary investigative commander Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and Harmon even made a cameo appearance in the pilot episode.While Weatherly, de Pablo, and McNamara hinted that fans could definitely look forward to some NCIS name-drops on Tony & Ziva — and even look forward to potential future crossover appearances — Harmon doesn't appear slated for a Tony & Ziva season 1 cameo.
But Weatherly joked that the Comic-Con audience would now at least take a little piece of Leroy Jethro Gibbs lore with them into the world. "Now that we've told everyone in this room, [de Pablo] and I are going to be in a public bathroom somewhere in Detroit, and someone's gonna be like," he joked, making the secret signal.
The first three episodes of NCIS: Tony & Ziva premiere Sept. 4 on Paramount+, with new episodes to follow weekly until the Oct. 23 season finale.
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