Ahead of the 20th anniversary of NCIS — which falls today, Saturday, September 23 — producers, casting agents, and network execs reminisced about the CBS procedural’s origins, including the actors who were in consideration for lead roles.
“I know Harrison Ford was a name that everybody thought about for [Leroy Jethro] Gibbs [ultimately played by Mark Harmon] because he was so perfect,” executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter for a 20th-anniversary oral history for the show. “But I don’t think it ever got further than, it was a name thrown out.”
Added former CBS casting head Peter Golden, “When you sit down, and you have an initial conversation about casting, no name is off the table. Back in the early 2000s, the Harrison Fords of the world [rarely did TV]. But that didn’t mean you didn’t put them on the list.”
Monty Brinton/CBS
NCIS casting director Susan Bluestein listed off other people considered for Gibbs: “There were names like Alec Baldwin, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Berenger, Val Kilmer, Charlie Sheen, Aidan Quinn, Patrick Swayze. We did not make offers to those people. We just investigated.”
Bluestein said that Scott Glenn was also eyed to play Gibbs — as well as Donald “Ducky” Mallard, the role ultimately played by David McCallum. “There was a lot of discussion about Scott Glenn, and ultimately Scott Glenn passed,” she said. “And other people passed for Gibbs.”
Another actor “in the mix for Gibbs” at one point in the process was Andrew McCarthy, according to NCIS co-creator Don McGill. “He and [co-creator] Don Bellisario met and talked over the role,” McGill added.
Johnson, meanwhile, added that NCIS producers discussed casting a certain Friends star. “I think Jennifer Aniston was available at the time, and her name was floated,” he said.
Of course, even without those actors as Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents, the show “really was so strong out of the gate,” said Nina Tassler, former president of CBS Entertainment. “You had incredible chemistry between the cast, and there was a tone and a sensibility to NCIS that other procedurals couldn’t quite hit.”
NCIS, Seasons 1-20, Streaming Now, Paramount+
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
