TV Guide - An NCIS Father-Son Reunion 11/01/10

CBS *An NCIS* Father-Son Reunion** by Chris Willman January 11, 2010 11:29 AM EST Robert Wagner is sitting with Michael Weatherly in a hotel bar and poses a question for an observer. “Is he doing me, or am I doing him?” asks the 79-year-old legend. “Have you figured it out yet?” Good question. Wagner is the guest star on the 150th episode of NCIS (airing Jan. 12 at 8/7c on CBS), in which he plays the father of Weatherly’s Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. There is a sense in which, as DiNozzo Sr., he’s “doing” a paternal impression of the charmingly irascible DiNozzo Jr. that NCIS fans are familiar with, showing just how far the apple did or didn’t fall from the tree. But Weatherly has been doing Wagner for a lot longer. He actually played the elder actor once in a 2004 TV movie about Natalie Wood that Peter Bogdanovich directed—something he says never came up when Wagner came onto the NCIS set. But even before that, he patterned himself after Wagner in ways both broad and small, as you’ll learn in this joint Q&A. There may have been a bit of typecasting involved. Wagner spends much of the episode wandering around the office with Pauley Perrette or Cote de Pablo hanging on his arm. And when we first met him at the Pasadena hotel, sure enough, there he was with Perrette on his arm, in life, as on screen. Forewarning: Weatherly did most of the talking, talking up Wagner’s godlike qualities, with Wagner just grinning and pointing at his younger counterpart, as if to say, “Can you believe this guy?” WAGNER: I love this young man! WEATHERLY: And the love is returned. Maybe with a little extra on top from me. PASSERBY [to Wagner]: You’re the handsomest. You always have been, since [1954's] Prince Valiant. WAGNER: Oh my God, I should have pulled out the wig for this character. That would have broken you up. WEATHERLY: How about if we’re undercover in the next one? But we’re both in the Prince Valiant wigs? WAGNER: That’d be good! TV GUIDE MAGAZINE: Were you familiar with the NCIS universe or Tony’s character before they asked you? WAGNER: Oh yes, I was familiar with it. I was also thrilled with the prospect of being his father. Many people had said to me “You look so much alike.” I was thrilled to be able to work with him, and with Mark Harmon. They wrote a nice range for me. They gave me an opportunity to have a lot of colors and aspects to my character that you don’t [immediately] understand, that you don’t get him, what he’s about, at first. WEATHERLY: I said to you when we were doing it, for me professionally, it’s the zenith of 20 years for me, to play these moments and to find stuff that… I mean, there’s some broad, loose, fun stuff that we do, but there’s some poignant, deep places that we found. Is there any bit of business in the episode that you most enjoyed? WAGNER: I do have a favorite moment: at the end, when I tell him… [Sorry, redacted because it’s a spoiler.] Michael’s so wonderful at the end of that, when I leave and the camera’s on him. WEATHERLY: In the first scene that we filmed together, Sr. is at Jr.’s desk, so RJ’s sitting at my desk, and he’s typing on the computer, and I’ve been banished from my desk and I’m at McGee’s desk. I’m champing at the bit and chafing, because I’m not used to being not in control in that area. And I make a move to go over to the desk, and without looking at me, RJ just gives me the hand, which sits me back down. Now, we both have German shepherd dogs. And that to me is the relationship in a nutshell. Gibbs is an alternate father figure, and it was interesting to play between these two father figures, and ping-pong back and forth. But you see who the real father is. He looks at me at one point later on in the show, and I’m like, “I can’t tell you that, Dad. That’s a top secret thing!” and he just gives me the look, and I just immediately fold and give him all the information. Your Wagner fascination goes back a while. WEATHERLY: You can go on hulu.com and watch It Takes a Thief, which I have watched quite a bit of. And some of the best stuff, it’s just cool-baby television, watching you walk around. That’s some good stuff, man! One year I bothered them so much, because I brought in a picture of RJ. Can I show him the picture? [He pulls out his iPhone, which has a color photo of Wagner from the late ‘60s.] I walked into the hair and makeup trailer—and this was a couple years ago—and I said “I have the hair that I want to do for next year.” And they were like “Oh, God. Weatherly’s got another hair idea.” I said “No no no. I’ve been watching this guy.” WAGNER [looking at Weatherly’s iPhone]: I think that picture was taken by TV Guide! A while ago. WEATHERLY: Well, it is fantabulistic. I wanted that haircut. So I went in there and they tried it on me, and… I don’t quite have the face. There’s sterling, and then there’s the kind of stuff you get at the Sav-On. You’re a good-looking man, RJ. WAGNER: We should do a spinoff. What line of business would you be in? Both on the side of law or running scams together? WEATHERLY: I know what it is. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. And I’ve gotta go in and woo this girl, and you’re going over and you’re wooing that girl. And in the end it’s always the dowager that wants me up in her bedroom, and you end up with the 19-year-old, and I’m like “Dad!” WAGNER: That’s not a bad idea. WEATHERLY: You end up with Natalie Portman and somehow I’m making the moves on Olympia Dukakis. We see a slightly different Tony in this episode. WEATHERLY: I’ve had some great ones this season, I think starting with the first episode, which we started in July. I think that for me is one of my favorite experiences, shooting. Any time as an actor they inject a truth serum into your character, you have a great opportunity to do things. And having Robert Wagner portray Tony DiNozzo Sr. is very similar to the truth serum. Because of course in the presence of a family member, a powerful father figure, it brings out the real Tony. In front of his father he can’t be as glib and deflective as he normally is. So there’s this earnest quality. A lot of fans have remarked on how goofy Tony has been for much of season 7. But some of them have said, well, wait, maybe that’s the setup for some more serious development. And that prediction kind of comes true with this episode, which directly addresses the whole “tears of a clown” theory. WEATHERLY: I think we have a very loyal audience that watches week after week. I don’t know what the metrics are on it. But I think that when you have a character as volatile and capable of extraordinary silliness or extraordinary intensity, the audience gets a little confused. Like, well, is Tony really intense, and is he moving forward, or is he just a silly guy who can’t get his act together? And this kind of cuts it right down the center and exposes kind of the inner workings of it. We learn about Tony's mother, we learn just a lot of things about him that were a mystery. I had certainly decided on some things, and the writers and I talked about it, so that all became more clear. But as we were making the episode, I thought, oh—I guess it’ll be a little different from here forward. I actually spoke with a few writers yesterday who said they removed some silliness from some scenes [in future episodes], because they felt that after the RJ episode, that it just didn’t quite fit the same way. You know, there’s a sense of humor, and then there’s just abject absurd surreal silliness. Which I am a fan of! But it has a place. *NEXT: Cote de Pablo and Shane Brennan on NCIS' "daddy issues"!* Cote de Pablo has her own take. “This year we have the pleasure of having RJ with us, which was a pleasure,” she says, for emphasis. “And we learn something about DiNozzo’s relationship with his father, which is a complex relationship. Michael is a very complex person. That obviously somehow finds its way into the character. I think there are many, many walls around that particular character, Tony. He is not just what you see. He is a funny guy; at times he can be an idiot; at times he can be the sweetest guy. At times he can be a friend. And at times you just want to slap him around the head, for a while. A long while." “But, I think under all of it there’s a genuine heart,” she continues. “There’s a genuine person that feels. And whenever we get to see moments of Tony that are completely vulnerable, I think they’re beautiful. The more you see Tony kind of try to hide everything, that’s when he’s maybe going through the most. You know?” Father issues have been big on NCIS this season—for both Ziva and Gibbs, before Tony. “I’m wondering when they’re gonna throw in a mother!” says de Pablo, laughing, but not entirely kidding. “I’m waiting for that one. Because it’s such a male-driven show, isn’t it? Pauley and I, that’s it. And so when that happens, you kinda go, okay, fine, I have daddy issues, no questions asked, and Mark has stuff with his dad going on… But at a certain point you go, okay, where are the mothers here?” She laughs again. “I do hope it happens soon.” No official word on that. But meanwhile, what are the chances of Wagner making a return, as satisfyingly self-contained an episode as this one is? “I wouldn’t rule it out,” says executive producer Shane Brennan, acknowledging that nothing additional is in the cards for “Sr.” for this season. “If people want to speculate, I’d suggest they go back and look at ‘Heartland.’ Ralph Waite [as Gibbs’ father] in that episode was just magnificent. And the audience clamored to see him again, so we brought him back. In many respects, the audience have a certain amount of control of this. If they like the character and they let us know that, then we will endeavor to make that work. “We actually brought [Waite] back for one line in the Christmas episode last season, where Gibbs phones him in the very last scene, and his father answers the phone and says ‘Hello’ and Gibbs says ‘Merry Christmas, dad,’ and Ralph Waite says ‘Merry Christmas, son.’ That was it. But his father was back and the audience really appreciated that little moment, and then we brought him back for the episode that aired recently. So as I say, never say never. We respond to the audience.” Chances are, after this episode airs, viewers will have a heart-to-heart with Brennan about Wagner’s return

CBS

An NCIS Father-Son Reunion

by Chris Willman January 11, 2010 11:29 AM EST

Robert Wagner is sitting with Michael Weatherly in a hotel bar and poses a question for an observer. “Is he doing me, or am I doing him?” asks the 79-year-old legend. “Have you figured it out yet?”

Good question. Wagner is the guest star on the 150th episode of NCIS (airing Jan. 12 at 8/7c on CBS), in which he plays the father of Weatherly’s Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. There is a sense in which, as DiNozzo Sr., he’s “doing” a paternal impression of the charmingly irascible DiNozzo Jr. that NCIS fans are familiar with, showing just how far the apple did or didn’t fall from the tree.

But Weatherly has been doing Wagner for a lot longer. He actually played the elder actor once in a 2004 TV movie about Natalie Wood that Peter Bogdanovich directed—something he says never came up when Wagner came onto the NCIS set. But even before that, he patterned himself after Wagner in ways both broad and small, as you’ll learn in this joint Q&A.

There may have been a bit of typecasting involved. Wagner spends much of the episode wandering around the office with Pauley Perrette or Cote de Pablo hanging on his arm. And when we first met him at the Pasadena hotel, sure enough, there he was with Perrette on his arm, in life, as on screen.

Forewarning: Weatherly did most of the talking, talking up Wagner’s godlike qualities, with Wagner just grinning and pointing at his younger counterpart, as if to say, “Can you believe this guy?”

WAGNER: I love this young man!

WEATHERLY: And the love is returned. Maybe with a little extra on top from me.

PASSERBY [to Wagner]: You’re the handsomest. You always have been, since [1954's] Prince Valiant.

WAGNER: Oh my God, I should have pulled out the wig for this character. That would have broken you up.

WEATHERLY: How about if we’re undercover in the next one? But we’re both in the Prince Valiant wigs?

WAGNER: That’d be good!

TV GUIDE MAGAZINE: Were you familiar with the NCIS universe or Tony’s character before they asked you?

WAGNER: Oh yes, I was familiar with it. I was also thrilled with the prospect of being his father. Many people had said to me “You look so much alike.” I was thrilled to be able to work with him, and with Mark Harmon. They wrote a nice range for me. They gave me an opportunity to have a lot of colors and aspects to my character that you don’t [immediately] understand, that you don’t get him, what he’s about, at first.

WEATHERLY: I said to you when we were doing it, for me professionally, it’s the zenith of 20 years for me, to play these moments and to find stuff that… I mean, there’s some broad, loose, fun stuff that we do, but there’s some poignant, deep places that we found.

Is there any bit of business in the episode that you most enjoyed?

WAGNER: I do have a favorite moment: at the end, when I tell him… [Sorry, redacted because it’s a spoiler.] Michael’s so wonderful at the end of that, when I leave and the camera’s on him.

WEATHERLY: In the first scene that we filmed together, Sr. is at Jr.’s desk, so RJ’s sitting at my desk, and he’s typing on the computer, and I’ve been banished from my desk and I’m at McGee’s desk. I’m champing at the bit and chafing, because I’m not used to being not in control in that area. And I make a move to go over to the desk, and without looking at me, RJ just gives me the hand, which sits me back down. Now, we both have German shepherd dogs. And that to me is the relationship in a nutshell. Gibbs is an alternate father figure, and it was interesting to play between these two father figures, and ping-pong back and forth. But you see who the real father is. He looks at me at one point later on in the show, and I’m like, “I can’t tell you that, Dad. That’s a top secret thing!” and he just gives me the look, and I just immediately fold and give him all the information.

Your Wagner fascination goes back a while.

WEATHERLY: You can go on hulu.com and watch It Takes a Thief, which I have watched quite a bit of. And some of the best stuff, it’s just cool-baby television, watching you walk around. That’s some good stuff, man! One year I bothered them so much, because I brought in a picture of RJ. Can I show him the picture? [He pulls out his iPhone, which has a color photo of Wagner from the late ‘60s.] I walked into the hair and makeup trailer—and this was a couple years ago—and I said “I have the hair that I want to do for next year.” And they were like “Oh, God. Weatherly’s got another hair idea.” I said “No no no. I’ve been watching this guy.”

WAGNER [looking at Weatherly’s iPhone]: I think that picture was taken by TV Guide! A while ago.

WEATHERLY: Well, it is fantabulistic. I wanted that haircut. So I went in there and they tried it on me, and… I don’t quite have the face. There’s sterling, and then there’s the kind of stuff you get at the Sav-On. You’re a good-looking man, RJ.

WAGNER: We should do a spinoff.

What line of business would you be in? Both on the side of law or running scams together?

WEATHERLY: I know what it is. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. And I’ve gotta go in and woo this girl, and you’re going over and you’re wooing that girl. And in the end it’s always the dowager that wants me up in her bedroom, and you end up with the 19-year-old, and I’m like “Dad!”

WAGNER: That’s not a bad idea.

WEATHERLY: You end up with Natalie Portman and somehow I’m making the moves on Olympia Dukakis.

We see a slightly different Tony in this episode.

WEATHERLY: I’ve had some great ones this season, I think starting with the first episode, which we started in July. I think that for me is one of my favorite experiences, shooting. Any time as an actor they inject a truth serum into your character, you have a great opportunity to do things. And having Robert Wagner portray Tony DiNozzo Sr. is very similar to the truth serum. Because of course in the presence of a family member, a powerful father figure, it brings out the real Tony. In front of his father he can’t be as glib and deflective as he normally is. So there’s this earnest quality.

A lot of fans have remarked on how goofy Tony has been for much of season 7. But some of them have said, well, wait, maybe that’s the setup for some more serious development. And that prediction kind of comes true with this episode, which directly addresses the whole “tears of a clown” theory.

WEATHERLY: I think we have a very loyal audience that watches week after week. I don’t know what the metrics are on it. But I think that when you have a character as volatile and capable of extraordinary silliness or extraordinary intensity, the audience gets a little confused. Like, well, is Tony really intense, and is he moving forward, or is he just a silly guy who can’t get his act together? And this kind of cuts it right down the center and exposes kind of the inner workings of it. We learn about Tony's mother, we learn just a lot of things about him that were a mystery. I had certainly decided on some things, and the writers and I talked about it, so that all became more clear. But as we were making the episode, I thought, oh—I guess it’ll be a little different from here forward.

I actually spoke with a few writers yesterday who said they removed some silliness from some scenes [in future episodes], because they felt that after the RJ episode, that it just didn’t quite fit the same way. You know, there’s a sense of humor, and then there’s just abject absurd surreal silliness. Which I am a fan of! But it has a place.

NEXT: Cote de Pablo and Shane Brennan on NCIS' "daddy issues"!

Cote de Pablo has her own take. “This year we have the pleasure of having RJ with us, which was a pleasure,” she says, for emphasis. “And we learn something about DiNozzo’s relationship with his father, which is a complex relationship. Michael is a very complex person. That obviously somehow finds its way into the character. I think there are many, many walls around that particular character, Tony. He is not just what you see. He is a funny guy; at times he can be an idiot; at times he can be the sweetest guy. At times he can be a friend. And at times you just want to slap him around the head, for a while. A long while."

“But, I think under all of it there’s a genuine heart,” she continues. “There’s a genuine person that feels. And whenever we get to see moments of Tony that are completely vulnerable, I think they’re beautiful. The more you see Tony kind of try to hide everything, that’s when he’s maybe going through the most. You know?”

Father issues have been big on NCIS this season—for both Ziva and Gibbs, before Tony. “I’m wondering when they’re gonna throw in a mother!” says de Pablo, laughing, but not entirely kidding. “I’m waiting for that one. Because it’s such a male-driven show, isn’t it? Pauley and I, that’s it. And so when that happens, you kinda go, okay, fine, I have daddy issues, no questions asked, and Mark has stuff with his dad going on… But at a certain point you go, okay, where are the mothers here?” She laughs again. “I do hope it happens soon.”

No official word on that. But meanwhile, what are the chances of Wagner making a return, as satisfyingly self-contained an episode as this one is?

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” says executive producer Shane Brennan, acknowledging that nothing additional is in the cards for “Sr.” for this season. “If people want to speculate, I’d suggest they go back and look at ‘Heartland.’ Ralph Waite [as Gibbs’ father] in that episode was just magnificent. And the audience clamored to see him again, so we brought him back. In many respects, the audience have a certain amount of control of this. If they like the character and they let us know that, then we will endeavor to make that work.

“We actually brought [Waite] back for one line in the Christmas episode last season, where Gibbs phones him in the very last scene, and his father answers the phone and says ‘Hello’ and Gibbs says ‘Merry Christmas, dad,’ and Ralph Waite says ‘Merry Christmas, son.’ That was it. But his father was back and the audience really appreciated that little moment, and then we brought him back for the episode that aired recently. So as I say, never say never. We respond to the audience.” Chances are, after this episode airs, viewers will have a heart-to-heart with Brennan about Wagner’s return

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TV Guide - An NCIS Father-Son Reunion 11/01/10

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