How Mark Harmon’s ‘West Wing’ Performance Affected Don Bellisario’s ‘NCIS’
Mark Harmon wasn’t NCIS creator Don Bellisario’s first choice for the show. But Bellisario was quickly sold on Harmon after seeing the actor’s performance in The West Wing. His acting on the political drama even informed how Bellisario would end up writing Gibbs.
Don Bellisario decided to keep dialogue to a minimum after seeing Mark Harmon in ‘The West Wing’
Harmon was being looked at for the potential lead role in NCIS from the beginning. Casting director Susan Bluestein remembered that a lot of big names were being floated around for the NCIS lead role. These included the likes of Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Clive Owen. But Bluestein was one of a few executives that had her heart set on Harmon.
“I cast Mark Harmon to play John Dillinger in a movie of the week in 1991, and he was terrific,” Bluestein once told The Hollywood Reporter. “Mark had been on my NCIS list from day one. I always felt like Mark really had the gravitas for this character.”
A couple of others agreed. But the showrunner himself Bellisario wasn’t convinced that Harmon was right for the part. In a 2006 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bellisario confided that he saw Harmon as too much of a pretty boy. This changed when he watched Harmon’s appearance on the popular series The West Wing.
“What I saw was a very controlled presence, a quiet strength,” Bellisario said. ”That’s what I was looking for. Leroy is Mark’s kind of guy. Mark has that jock mentality — you tough it out no matter how tough it is.”
Bellisario also wrote Gibbs with Harmon’s West Wing performance in mind, which affected how much dialogue Harmon had on the show.
“He had that boyish face. I thought the best thing to do was to give him a minimum of dialogue,” Bellisario once told The Wall Street Journal.
How ‘NCIS’ changed after Don Bellisario left the show
Bellisario would eventually leave the show after butting heads with Harmon behind-the-scenes. Several sources indicated that Bellisario created a hectic work environment, which Harmon couldn’t tolerate any longer. Some of Harmon’s alleged complaints centered around Bellisario handing out their scripts at the very last minute. This greatly interfered with his and his castmates’ ability to focus on their work.
Although Bellisario asserted that he was ousted after Harmon refused to cooperate during a scene.
“I asked Mark to re-shoot a scene. He redid it exactly the same way he did it the first time and never spoke to me again,” Bellisario once told the LA Times.
The show was handed off to the show’s executive producers Charles Floyd Johnson and Shane Brennan. Although the two acknowledged some fresh new changes, they reassured fans the core of the show would remain the same.
“Not all bets are off,” Johnson once said according to Today. “The trick is to maintain the show that the audience knows and loves, a procedural but with a strong core of humor and character interplay.”
Harmon and the rest of the NCIS crew felt optimistic about the show’s direction under new leadership.
“We’re all part of favoring growth … they [Brennan and Johnson] have pushed that forward this year and the audience has responded,” he said. “The actors have, too, but sometimes the actors respond and the audience doesn’t.”
Harmon has been pretty mum on the details regarding Bellisario’s departure. But he hinted at some noticeable improvements with the on-set working conditions after the producer left.
“We work hard to keep this show what it is. That we’re working 12 hours a day versus 16 hours doesn’t mean we’re working less hard. There’s a pride that drives us,” Harmon said.
