After working together on the medical drama Chicago Hope, Rocky Carroll and Mark Harmon reunited on NCIS in 2008 when the latter came aboard to play Leon Vance in Season 5. The two actors remained cast-mates on the popular CBS procedural (which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription) until early fall 2021, when Harmon exited in Season 19’s fourth episode. Three and a half years later, Carroll still looks back on his time with Harmon on NCIS fondly, as evidenced by him explaining to CinemaBlend how the Leroy Jethro Gibbs actor went to great lengths to ensure the cast and crew were motivated.
Recalling a story Carroll told last year about when Mark Harmon pranked him in the middle of shooting one of his earliest NCIS scenes, I asked the actor during my interview with him if there any other amusing on-set stories involving Harmon that he could recall. He started off by telling me:
Well, that story gives the overview, It really goes back to the question you asked prior. When you have a job like that, it doesn't feel like you're at work. You're a part of a team. People forget Mark Harmon was a quarterback. Mark Harmon was a quarterback for UCLA, so he has the mentality of team… It's not only what you do on the field and when the cameras are rolling, it's how you relate to each other in the locker room. What kind of locker room do you have? So that kind of stuff, the pranks, sort of the fun stuff that we would do that just to keep each other motivated.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was NCIS’ lead character for over two decades, and Mark Harmon took on additional duties when he became an executive producer in Season 6. So it makes sense that Harmon had the mindset of a leader during that time. It wasn’t enough for him to just play his character and offer notes or suggestions on each episode. He also needed to look after the cast and crew’s morale and make sure that everyone was working together as a cohesive unit, much like how football players need to jive together as a team. Rocky Carroll continued:
Because sometimes you got 12 hour days where you're shooting a scene and your own location, and now you're in the fourth hour of the scene that you're shooting. So if you don't enjoy each other, have a little fun together, those would be some really brutal days. The culture that he created, the ‘locker room’ that he created was always good and always positive, and it works on both sides. The guys on the crew, they have a lot of fun. There are a lot of pranksters on both sides of the camera, and fortunately, we work in a job that allows us to do that and have a little bit of fun with each other. So it’s one of the reasons that so many people who started on that show 22 years ago are still there.
Rocky Carroll certainly still enjoys working on NCIS after all this time, telling me during the interview he’s “excited” to keep his 15+-year streak going because he enjoys both playing Leon Vance and also directing episodes here and there. If that camaraderie wasn’t present, no doubt he not only would have left NCIS long ago, but the show might not even still be on the air. Fortunately that’s not the case, and we can expect to see a lot more of Vance when NCIS Season 23 premieres this fall on the 2025 TV schedule.
As for Mark Harmon, in addition to still being an executive producer on NCIS, he carries out those same duties on NCIS: Origins, narrates the prequel and even briefly appeared on camera in the opening two-parter. Both shows air Monday nights on CBS.
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