Gibbs Is Back!

Gibbs’ Rule #8: Never take anything for granted. That one hit us hard when Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), the sometimes grumpy but always gutsy special agent in charge of NCIS, unexpectedly retired to go fishing in Alaska in 2021. We’ll get another chance to appreciate the “grab your gear” guy in NCIS: Origins, a 1991-set prequel in which the young Gibbs (Austin Stowell) starts work at what was then known as NIS at the Camp Pendleton office in California. The icing? Harmon returns to narrate.

“Mark Harmon has done a job that actors dream to do. He’s captured the world and so that is just slightly daunting,” says Stowell who watched numerous episodes to prepare. “But getting to know Mark has really been paramount to me stepping into these shoes and trying to fill them.”

Harmon’s key words of advice to Stowell were “trust yourself.” Harmon also acknowledges the challenge for an actor to play an existing character, saying, “This is a little different because some things are already in place and an audience knows where this leads years ahead.”

The idea for the series came from Harmon’s son Sean, who’d played the younger Gibbs in NCIS flashbacks.  “I believe that very few people are actually ‘born leaders’ and are instead forged into them, and Gibbs is no exception,” says Sean Harmon. “Digging into the backstory of ‘the boss’ seemed like a good opportunity to find out why Gibbs turned out the way he did and who was around to influence him on that journey.”

Mark Harmon suggested the best people to create the series would be longtime NCIS writers David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal who executive produce and are co-showrunners. They asked the senior Harmon to narrate.

The two-hour premiere introduces a Gibbs fresh back from Desert Storm, grieving the loss of his wife and daughter and trying to get his bearings with a new team. One of them is a younger version of a face familiar to NCIS fans, Gibbs’ confidante, Special Agent Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid, Six, in a role originated by Muse Watson as the older Franks).

“Franks is the one who brings Gibbs into NIS. It was an opportunity to perhaps save a lost soul,” says Schmid who emailed and spoke with Watson as part of his preparation. “Taking on a character played by such a wonderful actor is a bit of a challenge. You have to play by a certain set of rules. The mustache is a trademark of Muse’s. I wear dark brown contacts every day at work. I took on a dialect coach, so Kyle Schmid now sounds like Mike Franks all the time.”

The rest are new characters including Special Agent Cecilia “Lala” Dominguez (Mariel Molino).

“I’m interpreting someone who’s a former Marine, now a female agent at NIS and I’m excited to jump into that, especially in the Nineties, which is such an incredible era,” says Molino. “I love that there are no [cell] phones, no internet, no social media. Everything we portray is direct contact.”

So will any romance develop between her and Gibbs? “I’m trying to prove myself. It’s not a romantic vibe,” Stowell says. “They are kindred spirits, both bullheaded, stubborn and smart. They say opposites attract. So, what happens when people are the same?”

Gibbs’ first friend on the force is someone who’s not much like him at all: Special Agent Bernard “Randy” Randolf (Caleb Foote). “Gibbs is a bit of a lone wolf. Randy’s a bit of an extrovert. In this naval investigative setting, there’s hundreds of people, half of them in camouflage because it takes place on Camp Pendleton, and Gibbs is a deer in the headlights.  Randy sees that and immediately goes out of his way to make this person feel welcome. We create a friendship pretty quickly,” Foote says. “It’s cool to create a character that helps Leroy Jethro Gibbs to become the great detective that he is.”

Not in the field but equally important in solving cases are the assistant medical examiner Dr. Lenora Friedman (Lori Petty, Orange is the New Black), and the head of the NIS forensics lab, Woodrow “Woody” Browne (Bobby Moynihan, Saturday Night Live).

“I’m the goofy scientist who figures out weird stuff. It’s like working with the Muppets, you immediately realize you are not the important part. You’re just there to make the Muppets look awesome,” says Moynihan, of supporting the NIS team. “I’m splicing a lot of videotape. I have a hundred million [paper] files. I don’t have a laptop. They show the old tech.”

The first case will focus on a series of interconnected murders “that bounce off of our characters in a really emotional way,” North says. Adds Monreal, “Gibbs is thrown into this job and he’s in over his head, but in a way, this case is tailor-made for him, so he has an opportunity to shine.”

We’ll see a lot more emotion from the younger Gibbs than we’re used to as longtime NCIS fans. “The Gibbs that Gina and I wrote for so many years had learned to push it all that emotion down. This Gibbs hasn’t learned that yet,” says North.

NCIS: Origins, Series Premiere, Monday, October 14, 9/8c, CBS