NCIS star Michael Weatherly has been involved in a few subtle love storylines during his time on the show. But there was one subplot in particular that hit too close to home for the actor.
What Michael Weatherly’s ‘NCIS’ love interest had in common with his real wife
Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo has had a few potential love interests in the show. One of his first and most notable onscreen partners was Scottie Thompson’s Jeanne Benoit.
The pair met under unique circumstances in season 4, with DiNozzo being undercover at the time and Benoit being the daughter of a notorious arms dealer. DiNozzo and Benoit would indulge in a passionate relationship before parting ways due to their clashing goals. Thompson’s Benoit would make her return to the series in season 5, with her final appearance being in season 13.
Despite the huge gap between seasons 5 and 13, Thompson had little difficulty slipping back into her NCIS character.
“It is so good to be back,” Thompson once told ET. “It’s like I was never gone. It’s like walking back into the same family again.”
Weatherly welcomed Benoit back with open arms. But he couldn’t help notice the similarities between DiNozzo’s love interest, and his own real love life.
“[Benoit] is a doctor,” Weatherly said. “After season four, where Tony DiNozzo fell in love with a doctor, I went on hiatus and fell in love with a doctor. In real life, I am now married to that doctor. We have two children and we’re very happy and so this is a strange rew ind for me too, because I went home last night and I said to my wife, ‘Hey! Remember when I told you about that story arc eight years ago? It’s back.’”
Michael Weatherly felt this later potential love interest might’ve been better for Tony DiNozzo than Jeanne Benoit
Weatherly had high hopes for another love interest who appeared a bit later on in the show. EJ Barrett, played by Sarah Jane Morris, was recruited to NCIS in season 8. But the character already had an intriguing connection with DiNozzo.
It’s soon revealed that Barrett and DiNozzo were both offered a promotion to work overseas. DiNozzo chose to remain on board Gibbs’ team, whereas Barrett took the opportunity. Weatherly felt that Barrett joining his NCIS division provided a unique love interest, and an opportunity for DiNozzo to reflect on his career choices.
“It’s a nice wrinkle. And what it means for DiNozzo is he’s going to answer a couple of penetrating, deep questions, like, ‘Did I make the right decision?’ Beyond that, he’s intrigued by the person that did take the job,” he once told TV Line.
But from his initial impression of Barrett, Weatherly felt she might’ve offered a more stable love interest than characters like Benoit.
“It turns out she’s a pretty compelling adult, unlike some of the women Tony has been interested in in the past. [Their interaction] is unfettered by the complication of her being an undercover mark whose father is an arms dealer, to name one example. He never has made very good choices before,” he said.
Weatherly was also further interested in the idea of Barrett being a much more grounded character than some of DiNozzo’s other love interests as well.
“What happens for Tony is, for the first time, he’s genuinely interested in someone who’s real,” Weatherly once told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s not a blowup doll. It’s not the coffee girl who’s a college student. She’s not a Mossad assassin. I felt that is was this great opportunity for Tony to kind of develop a crush maybe, and possibly explore normal feelings about someone, as opposed to going undercover and then falling in love with the girl who doesn’t even know your name and whose father is an arms dealer you’re trying to bust, for instance.”