Lights, camera, action is not always as sexy as it ends up looking like in the final product. The same could be said for a particularly intimate scene during the season finale of NCIS:
Origins. In a recent interview with TVLine, Mariel Molino, who plays Special Agent Cecilia “Lala” Dominguez, revealed that the steamy pool scene between Lala and Gibbs (Austin Stowell) was anything but. “We were freezing our t–s off!” Molino explains. In the scene, Lala tells Gibbs she comes to her neighbor’s pool to blow off steam, though the neighbors don’t know she’s there.
Gibbs, in order to talk to her, gets in the pool with her, making for an intimate moment to witness for fans who have been watching the tension build between Lala and Gibbs all season.
“That was a night shoot at 1 am going into 2 am, so it was really cold,” Molino recalled. She says in order to stay warm she’d hop out of the pool, “where our special effects was blasting a massive heater. I would warm up and then go into the pool again.” Though, Molino explained it wasn’t all bad. “Getting to swim around for fun was just a delight.” And apparently a first for the actor on set. “I can’t say I’ve done that before!”
Mariel Molino Wanted to Take “Big Swings” As Lala in ‘NCIS: Origins’
Collider recently spoke to co-showrunners Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North about the shocking season finale, “Cecilia.” Aside from discussing Lala’s fate up in the air, North and Monreal also talked with Collider about Molino’s aspirations when joining the series. North explained that Molino “is an absolute powerhouse of an actor, and she, from the beginning, knew that she was signing on to a show that wanted to take big swings.” North tells Collider:
“She knew that Gina and I really didn’t want to just set out to do this the normal way. As proud as we are of the OG NCIS, and it’s such a big part of our lives, we wanted to try to do something a little different, and Mariel knew that going into this. We’re just really proud of her performance in the finale, regardless of what happens next.”
Molino has had standout moments throughout the inaugural season of NCIS: Origins, including what North reveals to be the final scene they shot for the entire season. The scene featured Molino and Tyla Abercrumbie late at night at NIS, not long after the intimate almost-kiss between Gibbs and Lala. “We shot that so late at night,” North explained. “At one and two in the morning, our last scene of the entire season. The crew’s tired, the actors are tired, and I sat there and just thought, “We are so lucky.” Watching those two actors do that scene that Gina had written so beautifully, what a way to end the season.”