NCIS boss threatened to replace Michael Weatherly who was ‘shook’ by candid intervention

NCIS would have looked very different without Michael Weatherly but there was a point where someone else may have taken over the role of charming Tony DiNozzo. 

Ahead of the spin-off NCIS: Tony and Ziva coming out later this year, stars Michael Weatherly and Ziva David actress Cote de Pablo have teamed up for their new Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast. 

On the series, which is set for 25 episodes, the onscreen couple take a look back at their time on NCIS, both in front and behind the camera, with future guest stars like Sean Murray and Sasha Alexander. 

The first episode, however, focused on Weatherly and Pablo’s journey on the CBS police procedural, including how they got their roles in the first place. 

While it was a relatively straightforward journey for the DiNozzo actor in getting onto the set, he was soon put in his place by creator Donald P Bellisario.

Read more: Tragic General Hospital star Johnny Wactor starred in NCIS 5 years before death

Explaining on the Off Duty podcast, he said: “I was working with Peter Bogdanovich in Australia and we are going to be talking about this with a few of our guests in the future. 

“But I had a magical dinner with Donald P Bellisario and his family and after the dinner, Don offered me the job. 

“So I accepted the job, I flew back, I started right away, I think I had one weekend to turn around and start shooting the two episodes of JAG that were the pilot, Meltdown and Ice Queen. 

“And I had no idea who the character was, I had no idea what I was doing. 

“Don Bellisario quickly took me by the scruff, like a puppy, by the back of the neck, not literally, well, almost literally, and shook me up.”

Weatherly continued: “He said: ‘I don’t know what you’re doing but whatever you’re doing, stop that because it’s not good’ and it was my acting. 

“He said: ‘I want the guy I had dinner with. I want you. I don’t give a f**k what you do as far as the script goes, f**k the script, I wrote it, don’t do it or we’ll replace you with someone who can do it. 

“‘But I want to see that guy. I don’t care about the rest of it.’ 

“It shook me to my core, because here I was, 13 years into what I thought was a professional career and I had this guy telling me I couldn’t do it. 

“You spend all this time with script supervisors and beautiful people doing beautiful jobs but they’re correcting you, correcting you, correcting you, correcting you. 

“So you start to become really self conscious and locked in and more and more stiff and uncertain and unsure about your own flavour and further and your own spirit.”

“And it dies if you don’t nurture it and nourish it and here was this guy going ‘That’s what I want. The heart. I don’t give a s**t how your cheekbones look. 

“‘If you keep posing like that Weatherly, I’m going to slap the back of your head’, hence the head slap I think.”

Thankfully, Weatherly was able to pull back his performance, giving Bellisario and millions of viewers at home, what they wanted from DiNozzo. 

NCIS is available to watch on CBS and Disney+.