‘NCIS’: Michael Weatherly Didn’t Feel Like He Became Fully Famous Until His Late 30s

Although Michael Weatherly was with ‘NCIS’ from its beginning, it took a while before the show made him truly famous.

NCIS helped turn many of its stars into popular names worldwide after its success, including Michael Weatherly. But even after years on the procedural, it took some time before Weatherly experienced worldwide recognition.

How Michael Weatherly felt about becoming famous

Weatherly might’ve already been a fairly well known name in the world of acting before NCIS. He already starred alongside Jessica Alba in James Cameron’s Dark Angel. Being associated with a Cameron project, and co-starring alongside Alba at the time, might’ve helped familiarize Weatherly with the audience. But NCIS was what put millions of eyes on Weatherly on a weekly basis, garnering him fans and attention from around the world.

It took some time before NCIS gained some momentum, however. Initially, the show was simply getting by.

“We were able to keep it afloat a couple of years because we weren’t good enough to get all the attention and we weren’t bad enough to get canceled,” Harmon once told Seattle Times.

It wasn’t until the third season of the show that NCIS saw significant gains in viewership.

This was also likely why Weatherly didn’t experience true worldwide fame until his late 30s. Weatherly was 35 when NCIS premiered all those years ago. Although his popularity was steadily growing, Weatherly was still able to enjoy the luxuries of obscurity before the show’s ascension.

“To my amazement and great, great appreciation DiNozzo is a character that has resonated with viewers,” Weatherly once told The Dubrovnik Times. “We had made many seasons of NCIS before it actually became popular internationally. So I had the pleasure of total anonymity for a very long time, and it wasn’t until I was in my late thirties that I had the sensation of being famous. It freaks my wife out a bit more than me. I think I had a long time to think about the status of being famous.”

Thanks to finding fame well into his mature years, Weatherly had little difficulty adjusting to his newfound stardom.

“On a practical level it takes longer to get through airports,” he said. “Thank god for the fans of the show because without them we wouldn’t be where we are now. It never bothers me or frustrates me. I feel terrible for people who become famous when they are in their teens, it must be much harder for them to cope. I had a full, proper life before I became famous, so I guess it was easier for me to cope with stardom.”

Michael Weatherly enjoyed how there was no envy on the ‘NCIS’ set

There was much to enjoy on the set of NCIS while Weatherly was on the show. One aspect that he missed about the series was the camaraderie between himself and his cast. Weatherly collaborated with his co-stars for thirteen years before his initial departure. His castmates came from all walks of life, with some having considerably more acting experience and name recognition than he did. Still, the cast treated each other as equals.

“We had a lot of veterans,” Weatherly said in a resurfaced interview with Parade. “David McCallum and Mark Harmon have had massive careers. I had worked enough and Pauley Perrette worked enough. When we came together, everybody knew what they were doing. We were free and loose and none of us wanted to play any other character. There was no envy and that meant, as a working environment, when you’re blocking scenes, everyone is having fun, collaborating and helping each other. I’m really trying to foster that as well at Bull.”

Michael Weatherly once recalled this hilarious fan encounter

NCIS’ growing presence around the world meant that Weatherly could be spotted in places further and further away from home. But he learned a while ago that some countries took longer to catch up to NCIS’ later seasons than others.

“I was recognized by a boy who was about 15. He came up behind me and said: ‘You are Michael Weatherly.’ It sounded like he was with the secret service,” Weatherly once told Virgin Media. “He then told me: ‘My sister thought it was you, but I thought – no, it can’t be. You are too old and fat.’ Season 1 of NCIS had just come on in Serbia. It was 13 years old.”