Tony and Ziva are together again! And what better way to (grab your) gear up for the NCIS spinoff premiering in September on Paramount+ than to see Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo together again?
The stars and executive producers, along with showrunner John McNamara, were on hand at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 to promote the new series, and the three of them stopped by TV Insider and TV Guide Magazine’s studio to talk all things NCIS: Tony & Ziva and pose for some photos.
Seeing how much fun Weatherly and de Pablo have together shows us just why we needed this new series — it’s been over a decade since they’ve shared the screen! Cote de Pablo left NCIS in its 11th season, with Weatherly following in its 13th, and while both have been back, they’ve never returned at the same time. They shared with TV Insider in June 2024 that they checked in with each other about those reprisals.
“Michael and I talked about my return in 2019, and I remember calling because we already had the idea of Tony and Ziva and [playing these characters again],” de Pablo said. “And I said, ‘Do you think this would get in the way?’ And he said, ‘No, this would not get in the way.’ And so in a way, I got a green light from him.”
Then, when it was Weatherly’s turn, for the episode paying tribute to the late David McCallum, “He said, ‘I really want to go back.’ And I said, ‘Well, if you go back, I’m not going to go back because we can’t both be back because then it gets in the way of the spinoff,’” she recalled. “So I said, ‘I know that you had a very special relationship with McCallum, and I think if you really want to do it, you should go, which means I have to sit this one out.’ So we’ve worked from the get-go for many years as a partnership, which means at times we have to confide in each other and sort of ask permission to do things in order to allow the other one to sit down or for things not to get in the way of the final objective, which is really to make this show and to give the audience the element of surprise on that show.”
Scroll down to check out the portraits of Michael Weatherly, Cote de Pablo, and John McNamara.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva, Series Premiere, Thursday, September 4, Paramount+
