When you've been around as long as NCIS has, there are bound to be a ton of big stars who have made cameos or had early roles in their career on the show. Some of the biggest stars of today have popped up on the long-running CBS procedural. Here is a list of quite a few stars who have appeared on NCIS.
Millie Bobby Brown
Before Millie Bobby Brown hit the really big time as Eleven in Stranger Things, she was working steadily from a young age. One of her first roles on American television came in Episode 6 of Season 12 of NCIS back in 2014. She had only had a couple of roles before it.
Glen Powell
Glen Powell has emerged as one of the biggest stars around. His first huge break came in Top Gun Maverick, and even though that made him an A-lister, he'd been a working actor for decades at that point, going back to roles he had as a kid. An early role in his adulthood came in Season 10 of NCIS, where he played a Marine in a double episode.
Lily Tomlin
You just never knew who might show up on NCIS. In Season 9 viewers were treated to an appearance by the legendary Lily Tomlin. In true Tomlin style, she plays a quirky but capable grandmother to one of the team members, McGee (Sean Murray).
Billy Dee Williams
If fans ever wondered why Gibbs (Mark Harmon) had the first name Jethro, they learned why in Season 10. In the episode, the great Billy Dee Williams plays Jethro Moore, a World War II hero, and Gibbs' father's best friend. Moore and the older Gibbs had had a falling out, but by the end, the younger Gibbs had smoothed everything out between them.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Hollywood legend Jamie Lee Curtis had a bit more than just a cameo. On the show she played Dr. Samantha Ryan over five episodes towards the end of Season 9 plays a possible love interest for Gibbs, but alas it was not meant to be and she is forced to go into hiding, never to be heard from again on the show.
Terry O'Quinn
In the early days of NCIS, there was another show about to make its network debut: Lost. It turns out that quite a few actors who became known for their roles on Lost also popped up on NCIS around the same time. One is none other than John Locke himself, Terry O'Quinn. O'Quinn plays a Marine Colonel in an episode in the show's first season.
Danica McKellar
Danica McKellar is best known as Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years. She also had a great, if somewhat brief, run in The West Wing as Will's sister. On NCIS, she appeared in the Season 2 episode called "Witness," as the titular witness of a crime. In the years since McKellar has found a home in made-for-TV Christmas movies and remains popular with her fans.
Sean Astin
Sean Astin has carved out a pretty amazing career. His very first role, as Mikey in The Goonies, is one of the most beloved movie characters of all time. Plus he was in that little trilogy known as the Lord of the Rings, something he was nervous about. More recently, he was a key cast member of Stranger Things. In between, he was never not working, including a guest spot in Season 9 of NCIS.
Taye Diggs
You could say that Taye Diggs got back to his roots in his guest appearance in Season 13. While Diggs plays a Marine on the show, he's a marine with the voice of an angel and at the end of the show, Diggs sings "Hallelujah" with the help of the real-life MusiCorps Wounded Warrior Band. Diggs, of course, got his start on Broadway in musicals like Carousel and Rent.
Samantha Logan
Samantha Logan is best known for roles in Netflix's 12 Reasons Why and CW's All American, but before both of those roles she played the daughter of a character played by Taye Diggs on NCIS. Logan made her acting debut way back in 2009 when she was just 13 and had a small role in Gossip Girl.
Bob Newhart
What can we say about the late, great Bob Newhart? His TV career is the stuff of legends with two massively popular shows that bore his name and for a younger generation, he'll always be Will Farrell's character's adoptive father in Elf. He also popped up in NCIS, playing a character very much in his wheelhouse.
Jon Cryer
Jon Cryer started his career in some classic '80s movies like Pretty In Pink and Morgan Stewart's Coming Home. In the 2000s, he became a TV legend as one of the men in Two and a Half Men. He's since even played Lex Luthor, in the Supergirl TV show. Somehow he also found the time to pop into an episode of NCIS playing a battlefield doctor.
Drew Carey
He started in stand-up. Then had a hit show named after himself. Then he became a superstar of daytime TV as the host of The Price is Right. Drew Carey has done it all, including showing up for one episode of NCIS as a retired marine. Carey was a marine in real life, so the role is actually perfect.
Michelle Obama
Okay, okay so technically Michelle Obama isn't an actress, but she did show up in one episode of NCIS while she was First Lady of the United States. She played herself of course, there's no way she could be anyone but herself, right? She welcomed Gibbs and others to the White in an episode called "Homefront."
Abigail Breslin
As one of the youngest Oscar nominees ever, at age 10, you might think that Abigail Breslin just burst on the scene in Little Miss Sunshine. That's not the case though. Breslin was already a working actor with a bunch of credits on her resume, including a supporting role in one episode of NCIS in the Season 2 premiere.
Sterling K. Brown
The Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actor Sterling K. Brown was a veteran of prime-time TV long before his own show, This Is Us, made people cry every week. As he was coming up in Hollywood, he popped up on all kinds of network shows, including one episode of NCIS in 2013.
Dean Norris
Dean Norris is most famous for Breaking Bad, but he's been snagging roles for decades. One role was as a Marine in a very early episode of NCIS. In Episode 12 of Season 1, Norris plays a soldier with a past run-in with Gibbs when Gibbs was still an MP.
Zac Efron
Zac Efron became a huge star thanks to movies like High School Musical and Neighbors, but he was a child long before those movies exploded. One of his early roles came in a Season 3 episode of NCIS where he played a trouble-making kid that he was perfect for.
Jesse Plemons
A quick glance at Jessie Plemons resume will show that the actor took the long road to fame. While he would eventually be leading men and key supporting characters in some of Hollywood's biggest movies, he started more humbly. One such example is his role as a teenager getting in trouble with the team at NCIS on the show.
Colin Hanks
Tom Hanks is often called "America's Dad" and so that must make Colin Hanks our collective brother, right? Well, maybe not, but he is a great actor in his own right and he shows it in roles like the one he starred in on NCIS in two episodes at the end of Season 10.
Sherilyn Fenn
As one of the breakout stars of Twin Peaks in the '90s, Sherilyn Fenn is no stranger to network TV. With over 100 credits to her name on IMDB, she's been on shows all over the dial over the last 30 years or so. One of those credits came in Season 1 of NCIS.
Josh Holloway
Josh Holloway's star shined the brightest when he starred as Sawyer in Lost starting in the fall of 2004. Just a few months before that, he played a local sheriff in Season 1 of NCIS. Since then, he's been a regular in shows like Yellowstone, Colony, and Intelligence.
Frank Whaley
It's crazy to think that Frank Whaley's career goes all the way back to the '80s. IT's even crazier to realize he's over 60 years old now. The guy hasn't aged a day since Career Opportunities in 1991. Come to think of it, neither has his co-star in that movie, Jennifer Connelly. Connelly, however, hasn't been in an episode of NCIS and Whaley has, playing an escaped convict.
Jim Rash
Jim Rash is most beloved for playing the hapless dean of the community college in Community, but he's been in tons of over shows. He's been in some quirky shows too, like a voice role in Mike Tyson's Mysteries and as a semi-regular on Reno 911!. He's a writer as well, co-writing the George Clooney movie The Descendants. He also found time to star in an episode of NCIS way back in it's first season.
Julie Benz
Julie Benz's first big TV role was on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and later its spinoff Angel, playing Darla. Later she was a regular on Hawaii Five-O and Defiance. In Episode 22 of Season 1 of NCIS, Benz played the grieving wife of a soldier.
Emilie De Ravin
It turns out that NCIS was a good place for cast members of Lost to star right before they all got super famous on the ABC show. Emilie de Ravin is one of those stars who appeared in a Season 1 episode of the show just like her fellow Lost cast members Josh Holloway and Terry O'Quinn.
Bellamy Young
Before Bellamy Young became a regular on the hit show Scandal, she worked on a lot of shows on TV, including two early episodes of Law & Order, where she played two different roles, something it turns out a lot of actors did. Young played an undercover ATF agent in an episode in Season 1 of NCIS.
Daphne Zuniga
For anyone who grew up in the 1980s, Daphne Zuniga will always be Princess Vesper in Mel Brooks' classic Space Balls and Alison in The Sure Thing alongside John Cusack. In the 2020s she was still turning in great performances, like that of a Navy commander with very questionable motives in a Season 17 episode of NCIS.
Zoe Perry
In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon's mother was played by the great Laurie Metcalfe. When the spinoff Young Shelton hit the airwaves. Zoe Perry took over the role and played it perfectly. She had a lot of experience at that point, including a guest spot as a police officer in two episodes of NCIS during the show's 13th season.
Ray Wise
Ray Wise is one of the great character actors of his generation. He's most famous for playing Leland Palmer, the father-turned-murderer in Twin Peaks, but his career stretches back to the 1960s. On NCIS he plays the father of a guy who thinks he's a superhero, which as you can imagine, he has no patience for in Episode 15 of Season 9.
Tyler Ritter
Actor Tyler Ritter, who is the son of the beloved John Ritter, seems to pop up all over the place. He's played a detective in Arrow, he was in Homecoming, and he played Abby Sciuto's (Pauley Perrette) brother Luca in an NCIS crossover event with NCIS: New Orleans when the spinoff began.
Don Lake
You might not know his name, but you know his face, especially if you are a fan of the Christopher Quest-verse. Don Lake was a cast member in Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and even Mascots. Usually, he plays the straight man, but that doesn't mean he's not hilarious. Even in serious roles, like his in a Season 17 episode of NCIS, you can't help but crack a smile when he's on screen.
