For over two decades, NCIS fans have watched as Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David fell in and out of love, welcomed a child, said goodbye to each other, and then reunited – and they still have yet to find their happily ever after. But off-screen actors Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo are best of friends, and nowhere was that chemistry more clear than at New York Comic Con on October 9, 2025 when they spoke to fans about the return of Tony and Ziva in the hit Paramount+ series NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
A sequel spin-off to CBS’ long-running series, it follows Tony and former partner Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) as they live their lives raising their teen daughter in Paris, France. Of course, things are never that easy for former agents on TV, and the two quickly find themselves being chased across Europe as they stand accused of bribing Interpol out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
It sees the pair reunite for the first time in six years; Cote left NCIS in 2013 in season 11, and Michael followed in 2015 during season 13; viewers learned at that time that Ziva, who had moved to Israel, was presumed dead after an attack on her farmhouse – and that she had kept her daughter with Tony a secret. Tony then left the NCIS organization to raise the young girl, but in 2019 both returned to NCIS for an episode arc that revealed Ziva was alive, and they reunited off-screen in Paris.
At the panel, hosted by Damien Holbrook, it was clear these two have remained friends throughout the years; from Michael’s gentlemanly behavior towards Cote, their playfighting, the sweet words they have for each other, and even their jokes, it’s proof that chemistry is not just on camera.
When the pair began to walk out on stage, HELLO! saw Michael pausing before allowing Cote to walk out first. He also did the same thing at the end, allowing her to leave first.
During the panel, HELLO! spotted them holding hands as they spoke about their favorite memories together on and off-set.
At one point, Cote was telling a story of filming a key scene for Tony & Ziva, when she said: “I think I was running, you were running behind me.”
“I was protecting you,’ quipped Michael for why he was running slower.
It’s clear these two have such love for their characters, and are excited for more stories to tell.
“The big discussion was how hard it is for Ziva to be without Tony,” said Michael, which left Cote exclaiming in indignation. However, he continued: “Because she comes from so much trauma, there’s so much pain in her background, like a haunting kind of pain.
“A lot of it is not on the surface… and so that would come with its own world of hurt and pain, and I think that the flip side was DiNozzo looked like he just kind of was skipping through a field of posies, but it turns out he’s got his own world of not looking at stuff.”
Cote also had sweet words for the new cast members who joined them on the series, admitting that she and Michael has talked about wanting to grow something special again, year after NCIS.
“Little by little you start having moments that make you laugh, and then before you know it you become a little bit of a family… it’s this really beautiful thing that just very naturally and organically happens,” she said. “But it’s what Michael and I always talk about having, so I think there was this willingness to create something special.”
She continued: “We knew that they had something that we wanted in our show and we knew that maybe those energies could grow together and something maybe magical could happen.”
Cote also had quips about hanging out with Michael, joking: “He’s a very interesting person. He can have moments where he can go radio silent – you’d never know it, but it’s true.”
The two also shared that, over a dinner, they realized that returning to the world of NCIS had been “healing” for them both. “Michael and I… we finally had a chat about what that first season was for us and I said, ‘Well, what was it like for you to do this?’ and we both sort of simultaneously said it was very healing because we never got a chance to really play out most of the things that we thought we could on such a long run.”
“And because of the fans and because of this energetic want to do this, all of that could be explored and in many ways it was really great to do this with you all.”
