Michael Weatherly’s ‘NCIS’ Relationship Reminded Him of Jessica Alba
NCIS star Michael Weatherly grew very close with Cote de Pablo both on and off-screen. So much so that there were aspects of his relationship with de Pablo that reminded him of Jessica Alba.
Michael Weatherly’s ‘NCIS’ relationship with Cote de Pablo was like Jessica Alba’s in 1 way
Weatherly already knew firsthand what it was like falling for a co-worker. Collaborating with Jessica Alba on the set of Dark Angel led to a passionate romance between the two. This led to their engagement in 2001 despite the 12-year age gap between them.
Their relationship ended in 2003, with Weatherly vowing to never date a co-worker again after the experience. But it was a vow he couldn’t have made while deep in his romance with Alba. With the benefit of hindsight, the actor remembered just how helplessly lovestruck he was when it came to his partner.
“I remember very strongly the inevitable feeling I had about Jessica when we were doing Dark Angel because it was like I was the Millennium Falcon being sucked into the tractor beam,” Weatherly said in a 2010 interview with TV Guide. “I didn’t feel I had any control over that part of my life.”
At the time, Weatherly couldn’t help but draw a connection between his relationship with Alba and his onscreen romance with Cote de Pablo. Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo and de Pablo’s Ziva David flirted with their feelings for each other for a good part of NCIS. It’s a theme that’s sure to continue being explored in their upcoming spin-off. Weatherly felt his character’s feelings towards David were just as powerful as his real-life emotions towards Alba.
“I think that the same thing does happen for Tony. … He does feel Ziva really understands him on this fundamental level that even he doesn’t quite understand,” Weatherly said.
How Cote de Pablo describes her relationship with co-star Michael Weatherly
Although their characters may have teased a romance between each other, that hasn’t been the case for the actual actors. Unlike with Alba, Weatherly has had a platonic but playful relationship with de Pablo. In a recent interview with Variety, de Pablo confided that their humor might’ve been what they bonded over the most.
“You know what I’ve always said about working with Michael is it’s always refreshingly unpredictable. I think he also likes my … you know, the fact that I love to play,” de Pablo said. “Even though sometimes I come across as very, sort of, put together, my favorite thing is to go into kid land and play. I think we relate on that level. We are both, at our core, kids. We love playing. I respect the boundaries and the structure of that. He has a tougher time with the structure and the boundaries. But at the end of the day, we both like to play.”
Weatherly and de Pablo came a long way after their first meeting, where de Pablo felt they connected for both the right and wrong reasons. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, she famously recalled her first impressions of Weatherly.
“We sort of hated each other immediately, and loved each other immediately. I walked into the audition and he thought, Oh my god, she’s gonna be so hard to work with. She’s so complicated. And I thought, This guy’s so incredibly unprofessional,” she said. “During the audition, he grabbed my hair. He would not follow the lines. He totally went off script and started improvising, and this was my final audition with the heads of CBS. I thought, This guy is sabotaging my audition. So immediately I went, Oh, I’m gonna show this guy. I’m gonna show him.”
De Pablo revealed that her relationship with Weatherly barely changed from that moment.
“We realized we’re so drastically different and so much alike that there was an immediate attraction,” she said.
