NCIS launched its first spin-off with NCIS: Los Angeles, starring LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell, which quickly became a hit. However, Michael Weatherly, who played Tony DiNozzo, initially resisted the idea of crossing over to the new series. Despite his excitement about the spin-off, Weatherly felt DiNozzo belonged with his original NCIS crew.
“I won’t do a crossover, unless they put a gun to my head,” Weatherly once told TV Fanatic. “It won’t help them, and my character is really only valuable in the context of Ziva, Gibbs, and McGee. Robbed of his context, that guy might really be inappropriate.”
Years later, though, Weatherly changed his mind and appeared in a crossover episode with NCIS: Los Angeles in 2015’s “Blame It on Rio.” By then, Weatherly had grown to appreciate seeing DiNozzo in different settings.
“For 13 years, besides a tiny part here and there, I’ve just been playing DiNozzo. So having other experiences with the character is super important to me. Plus, I love to see how DiNozzo travels, how he’ll be in different settings. On NCIS, he can only do so much,” he shared in a resurfaced interview with TV Insider.
Despite embracing the new experience, Weatherly still had concerns about how DiNozzo would be received on NCIS: Los Angeles. “To be honest, I was a little nervous about going into NCIS: Los Angeles because I wasn’t sure how DiNozzo would be received—not just by the team, but by the audience,” Weatherly admitted. He found it refreshing to play a slightly older, more self-aware version of DiNozzo, especially alongside a younger, athletic cast, joking about his “DiNozzo paranoia” of aging out of the game.
