‘NCIS’ Creators Considered a Lot of A-list Actor to Play Gibbs — From Alec Baldwin to Patrick Swayze

‘NCIS’ creators considered A-listers to play Leroy Jethro Gibbs instead of Mark Harmon

Mark Harmon wasn’t always who NCIS creators wanted to play Leroy Jethro Gibbs. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, it was revealed that other A-list stars were considered for the role.

Charles Floyd Johnson, executive producer for JAG and NCIS, spoke about the casting challenges production initially faced. “I know Harrison Ford was a name that everybody thought about for Gibbs because he was so perfect,” Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter. “But, I don’t think it ever got further than, it was a name thrown out.”

Peter Golden, the former head of CBS casting, noted that the “Harrison Fords of the world” didn’t often do TV at the time. But no name was off the table during those initial casting conversations. “That didn’t mean you didn’t put them on the list,” Golden stated.

NCIS casting director Susan Bluestein stated she didn’t remember Ford’s name. Still, she did remember investigating other big-name celebs like Alec Baldwin, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Berenger, Val Kilmer, Charlie Sheen, Aidan Quinn, Andrew McCarthy, and Patrick Swayze. Scott Glenn was also heavily considered for the role of Ducky, but he passed on it.

“Casting was very challenging,” Bluestein added. “I cast Mark Harmon to play John Dillinger in a movie of the week in 1991, and he was terrific. Mark had been on my NCIS list from day one. I always felt like Mark really had the gravitas for this character.”

How did Mark Harmon get the job?

We can’t imagine anyone other than Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS. But he certainly had competition for the role.

Ultimately, it was Harmon’s past experience inThe West Wing

 and Jag that likely got him the role. After seeing Harmon in The West Wing, producer Donald P. Bellisario brought Harmon onto Jag as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in 2003, and Harmon joined NCIS later that same year. Five years later, Harmon worked as a producer and executive producer of NCIS, and he helped produce NCIS: New Orleans.

“Susan [Bluestein] said, ‘What about Mark Harmon?’” Peter Golden, former head of CBS casting, told The Hollywood Reporter. “Mark was a big deal, and everybody thought, ‘We’ll make an offer to Mark Harmon, and when we don’t get him, let’s go through the list of who else we could get.’ Mark had a meeting with Don Bellisario, and they hit it off, and Mark agreed to do it. All of a sudden, the show took on much more importance in my mind.”

Bluestein added that Bellisario wasn’t completely confident in Harmon to play Gibbs at first. But Bluestein intended to push for Harmon.

Will Leroy Jethro Gibbs appear in future episodes of ‘NCIS’?

Mark Harmon likely won’t appear in NCIS Season 21, which has a delayed premiere due to the writers’ strike. Does that mean we’ll never see Leroy Jethro Gibbs again?

“There’s always head space for him to come back,” executive producer Steven D. Binder told TV Insider in May 2022. “It just has to be the right story, I think, to get him excited about it and to get us excited about it. It’s a card to play, and I don’t think we want to play it cheaply. I think when we do play it, it really needs to be the right thing.”