{"id":1486,"date":"2025-01-12T15:51:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T15:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2025-01-12T15:51:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T15:51:41","slug":"inside-michael-weatherly-and-cote-de-pablos-adorable-friendship-ahead-of-ncis-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=1486","title":{"rendered":"Inside Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo\u2019s adorable friendship ahead of NCIS: Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Weatherly<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cote de Pablo<\/a>\u00a0will reunite in a new spin-off series, nicknamed\u00a0NCIS: Europe<\/a>. After co-starring on the flagship show for eight years, the duo \u2013 who became close friends on set \u2013 are gearing up to reprise their roles as power couple Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David.<\/p>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n
\u00a9 Sonja Flemming\/CBS via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n
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Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo are set to reprise their roles in an NCIS spin-off series<\/p>\n

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So, what can fans expect? The upcoming series will find their characters living in Paris, where they\u2019ve spent the past few years raising their daughter, Tali. But when Tony\u2019s security company is attacked, the couple are forced to go on the run across Europe, trying to work out who\u2019s after them while learning to trust one another again.<\/p>\n

For Michael and Cote, the decision to reunite was an easy one, especially as they\u2019d been talking about the story for \u201cmany years.\u201d With\u00a0NCIS: Europe<\/em>\u00a0in development, we\u2019re exploring the killer duo\u2019s long-standing friendship, and as it turns out, it didn\u2019t get off to a great start\u2026<\/p>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n
\u00a9 Getty<\/span><\/div>
The duo initially clashed before becoming close friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Speaking to\u00a0Deadline<\/a>\u00a0in 2016, Michael recalled their first meeting. \u201cI remember so vividly the screen test with Cote,\u201d he said. \u201cI just remember her cold stare. She just loathed me instantly \u2014 and I mean Michael Weatherly \u2014 but we quickly became very close friends.<\/p>\n

Cote echoed this sentiment in a 2009 interview with\u00a0Entertainment Weekly<\/a>. \u201cMichael and I clicked immediately. We sort of hated each other immediately, and loved each other immediately,\u201d she said. \u201cI walked into the audition and he thought, \u2018Oh my god, she\u2019s gonna be so hard to work with. She\u2019s so complicated.\u2019 And I thought, \u2018This guy\u2019s so incredibly unprofessional.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n
\u00a9 Getty<\/span><\/div>
The pair eventually bonded over their differences<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cDuring the audition, he grabbed my hair. He would not follow the lines. He totally went off script and started improvising, and this was my final audition with the heads of CBS. I thought, \u2018This guy is sabotaging my audition.\u2019 So immediately I went, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m gonna show this guy. I\u2019m gonna show him.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he tried touching me, and I literally like [mimes slapping his hand away]. That relationship was established the moment that we met. Nothing changed, it was just enhanced. And we loved each other as well. We realized we\u2019re so drastically different and so much alike that there was an immediate attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n
\u00a9<\/span>\u00a0Sonja Flemming\/CBS via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>
Michael and Cote have never dated<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

During their time on\u00a0NCIS<\/em>, fans hoped for a real-life romance between Michael and Cote, but in reality, they\u2019re just really good friends. In a 2019 interview, the Tony Dinozzo actor revealed that Cote had even met and bonded with his wife,\u00a0Bojana Jankovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean Cote will tell you you\u2019re wrong the minute you\u2019re wrong,\u201d he began \u201cShe calls me Shetty. She\u2019s like, \u2018Shetty, I know you think you\u2019re right but you\u2019re wrong.\u2019 \u201cShe and my wife get along very well, of course, because they both know that I\u2019m wrong all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Cote\u00a9 Sonja Flemming\/CBS<\/span><\/div>
Cote decided to leave NCIS in 2013, with Michael following in 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After leaning into Tony and Ziva\u2019s will-they-won\u2019t-they dynamic for eight years, Cote decided to leave\u00a0NCIS<\/em>\u00a0in 2013. Initially, the actress kept the reasons behind her exit vague, but in 2016, she admitted, \u201cUnfortunately because of political things and scripts not being good enough, I chose not to [return to NCIS].<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were going to send [Ziva] back to Israel and make her an unfortunate, miserable woman. I didn\u2019t think it was fair. I told them until someone can write something really fantastic for Ziva I won\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Cote\u2019s departure in 2013, Michael eventually followed suit, explaining that he missed the on-screen dynamic between their characters. Speaking to\u00a0TV Insider<\/a>\u00a0in 2016, he said: \u201c[Tony and Ziva\u2019s] great dynamic, the badinage and sparring and flirting between those two characters and how they would swing from siblings to near lovers and back to buddies, that was gone. Then I got to the point where I felt I\u2019d stayed at the party for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Michael Weatherly\u2019s Tony DiNozzo says his goodbyes to the NCIS team<\/figcaption>
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Michael Weatherly\u2019s Tony DiNozzo says his goodbyes to the NCIS team<\/div>\n
NCIS fans were left devastated back in 2016 when Michael Weatherly decided it was time to bow out of the police procedural after 16 years. The actor portrayed Anthony \u2018Tony\u2019 DiNozzo on the show, who was a firm favourite among fans.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now, ready to return in\u00a0NCIS: Europe<\/em>, Michael and Cote couldn\u2019t be more excited to collaborate again. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about this story for many years, and now with John McNamara at the helm, we are ready,\u201d they said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n
\u00a9 Getty<\/span><\/div>
Michael and Cote have been talking about NCIS: Europe for years<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears and laughter. We also want to acknowledge and thank the fans from around the world who supported the \u2018Tiva\u2019 movement for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, they say hello in grocery stores and on the street to tell us how much these characters mean to them and ask what Tony and Ziva are up to now. This is for you!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Weatherly\u00a0and\u00a0Cote de Pablo\u00a0will reunite in a new spin-off series, nicknamed\u00a0NCIS: Europe. After co-starring on the flagship show for eight years, the duo \u2013 who became close… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}