NCIS star Cote de Pablo shocked many when she left the series after eight seasons. For the sake of her fans, de Pablo hoped that her character, Ziva David, would at least be granted an honorable exit. But in hindsight, she couldn’t help but be disappointed with how Ziva went out.
What Cote de Pablo really felt about her ‘NCIS’ exit De Pablo was always a bit mum on the details about her NCIS exit. It wasn’t just difficult for her to leave the show, but for the show’s producers as well. CBS CEO at the time, Les Moonves, tried to lure de Pablo back with an undisclosed amount of money.
“We offered Cote de Pablo a lot of money , and then we offered her even more money, because we really didn’t want to lose her,” Moonves once told CBS News . But, of course, that didn’t work. So the NCIS showrunner back then, Gary Glasberg, hoped that fans could take solace in knowing Ziva was given a proper sendoff.
“We wanted to give her the most graceful, emotional payoff we could,” Glasberg said in an interview with TV Guide . “It was a pretty magical moment. Cote took it and ran with it, and the emotion you’ll see on screen is very real.
” However, looking back on it, de Pablo felt her character’s departure could’ve been handled better than it was. “I think it was rushed. I would have liked a little bit of closure,” she once told TV Line .
Still, de Pablo at least enjoyed her last moments on the show with her co-star and onscreen partner Michael Weatherly. “.
