At the beginning of NCIS Season 11, Cote de Pablo departed after eight seasons as a series regular, though she would later reprise Ziva David in the Season 16 finale and a few Season 17 episodes, and is currently working on the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva. Back in 2013, someone obviously needed to take Ziva’s spot on the team led by Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and that person ended up being Emily Wickersham’s Ellie Bishop. It was a unique audition experience, as not only did she screen test for the role on two of the main NCIS sets, Harmon also gave her a special gift to let her know she’d landed the gig, and I applaud what he chose.
In addition to Emily Wickersham going over how much of an adjustment it was for her leaving NCIS during her appearance on Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch, Michael Weatherly, the Tony DiNozzo performer who co-hosts the podcast with Cote de Pablo, went over the story behind the actress being cast as Bishop since Wickersham acknowledged that he had a “better memory” of what happened. He started off by saying:
The test was in Gibbs’ basement and in the squad room. There were two different scenes on set. Emily came onto the lot. We took half a work day just for testing. When you were doing your screen test with Mark Harmon, at the end of the test, he pulled a bishop chess piece out of his pocket and gave it to you because I think he knew you were Bishop and he was going to give that piece to whoever he thought was Bishop.
You have to remember that when Emily Wickersham auditioned to play Ellie Bishop, Mark Harmon had been one of NCIS’ executive producers for roughly five years. So in addition to bringing Gibbs to life onscreen, he also had a say behind the scenes in major creative decisions, including castings. Going off Michael Weatherly’s statement, it doesn’t sound like Wickersham had officially been brought aboard when Harmon gifted her the bishop piece, but in his eyes, there was no one more suitable for the role. Weatherly continued:
Well, it's very Mark Harmon, right? Because he's going to control that situation as the papa bear, Papa Smurf, as we called him, will do. But it let you know a couple of things. It let you know that you had a a little talisman, a little gift that was yours that represented the job, but it was also him that was giving it to you. So there was a clear, ‘By the way, I'm the decider in chief.’
I like how Harmon had that bishop piece ready to go once he identified who the right person would be to play Ellie Bishop, and once he was impressed by Emily Wickersham, that was enough to convince the other producers that she should be hired. It’s also interesting that Wickerhsam auditioned on the basement and squad room sets rather than just an average meeting room in some office. Whatever the reason was for that, I wonder if Harmon seeing the actress deliver her lines in those settings helped him realize she was the one who needed to play Bishop.
Like Cote de Pablo, Wickersham stuck around on NCIS for eight seasons, making her final appearance in the Season 18 finale, titled “Rule 91”. After deliberately tarnishing her reputation by leaking NSA secrets and getting fired from NCIS, Bishop embarked on an undercover mission for the CIA being run by Odette, the handler who used to work with Ziva. As such, the door is ideally open for Wickersham to reprise Bishop someday once the character’s mission is over, even if it’s just for a guest appearance.
For now, NCIS Season 22 premieres Monday, October 14 at 8 pm ET, and the Gibbs-focused prequel NCIS: Origins will follow immediately afterwards on the 2024 TV schedule. Use a Paramount+ subscription to stream NCIS’ previous 21 seasons and all the other shows in the franchise.
