NCIS star Michael Weatherly has confirmed that the upcoming spin-off series, NCIS: Tony & Ziva, will feature a third central character: their daughter, Tali. The series will focus on Tony and Ziva, portrayed by Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, as they raise Tali in Paris. After an attack on Tony’s security company, the family goes on the run across Europe, trying to balance their family life while uncovering who is targeting them.
Despite the title highlighting only two characters, Weatherly emphasized at a Monte-Carlo press event that Tali will play a significant role in the series. The young character will grapple with the revelation that her mother, whom she believed dead, is actually alive but had been absent for critical years.
“When you think about Tali, who is really the third character in Tony & Ziva, the idea for her to think that her mother was dead, and then her mother is alive, but was running around the world and didn’t come home to protect her,” Weatherly explained (via Variety). “Trust doesn’t mean truth or honesty. Just because I’m telling you the truth doesn’t mean you can trust me. You have a daughter who’s going to question the story. ‘No dad – you told me she was dead, and she just walked through the door.’ ‘Yeah, but your mom had reasons.’ ‘No, no, no. The facts are the facts.’ And then what are your relationships like? Where do you stand with the truth? And who do you trust? I mean, these are like the core principles of the show.”
Cote de Pablo, who returned as a guest star in NCIS’s 17th season, also shared insights about the spin-off. She highlighted the themes of trust and the evolving relationship between Tony and Ziva as they navigate co-parenting Tali amid numerous challenges. “The idea of trust, and the idea of how this relationship moves forward is something that was intriguing to us as actors,” she said. “We’re trying to address the idea of trust and we’re trying to address how they move forward parenting together with this child and trying to make things work and having a lot of challenges thrown at them.”
