‘NCIS’: Cote de Pablo Felt Like She Was Wearing a Garbage Can Playing Ziva David

NCIS star Cote de Pablo couldn’t have been more grateful to play special agent Ziva David . But she admitted that there were certain aspects to her character she would’ve liked to have tweaked slightly.

Cote de Pablo once revealed the challenges of playing Ziva David

De Pablo spent a lot of time with NCIS ’s Ziva David. She played the character for a consecutive eight years before taking a long hiatus from the procedural. But de Pablo wasn’t exactly like her NCIS counterpart, as there were more than a few differences between the two. Ziva’s emotions could sometimes be very suppressed in NCIS , which might’ve partially stopped the character from expressing her true feelings for Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo a bit earlier. This was a strong contrast to de Pablo, who considered herself a very open person.

“I am a very animated person when I talk,” de Pablo once told America Reads Spanish . “Having to do this and deliver information and be kind of, you know, that was very hard for me to do. It was very hard for me to do and I had directors always telling me that there was a lot of strength in not having everything be highly emotional. I think it comes from maybe how I was raised or – and that was a really hard thing for me to do.”

De Pablo’s theater background didn’t help matters, either.

“From an acting point of view, the idea of not being able to express things emotionally was a hard thing because I come from the theater where things are, you know, expressed physically and your face is engaged and everything about you, it’s just expressing emotion,” she said.

She also differed from David in terms of presentation. It’s common to see the actor in very plain attire, as opposed to de Pablo who’s been seen dressing up on a few occasions. So de Pablo sometimes wished that David could be a bit more glamorized for television.

“I feel, like, you know, I feel like I am wearing a garbage can like, you know, it’s a very weird thing and I am with men all day, all men that are, Mark Harmon is like, ‘I don’t care, I don’t want makeup, my hair looks fine,’” de Pablo said. “And I am very much the same way because I was always a tomboy. And sometimes I feel, well, it’s a hard question for me to enjoy being a girl. And I enjoy at times, you know, putting on that dress and all of that stuff. However, I feel that in order to play this character and be true to the character, I can’t pay attention to the physical aspect of who I am that much because it would be sacrificing who I believe is the real character. Does it play a role on my vanity? Hmm, yes. Would I love to look at times more presentable on TV? Absolutely.”

Cote de Pablo wasn’t sure she could play Ziva David again after her long hiatus

When Cote de Pablo Left ‘NCIS’ the Second Time, She Virtually Disappeared

De Pablo has always been somewhat secretive regarding the details of her departure. But after six years of being away from NCIS , she reprised David after some convincing.

“They were like, ‘We will have you in a lot of things. It will be challenging, it will be exhausting, and it will be rewarding in that sense.’ And it was great,” she once told KTLA 5 .

But de Pablo had some concerns about her ability to tap into David again. However, it seemed she was able to work out whatever lingering rust she might’ve had.

“I had no idea if I was going to be able to do it again, you always have these doubts when you’re disconnected from something for a long period of time,” de Pablo once told CBS News . “I remember going back to set being a little jittery, a little nervous. Then, as soon as I walked in with the quintessential Ziva jacket , the boots and all that stuff I just heard the crew clapping and I felt welcomed. I just felt, ‘I’m home’.”