Gerald McRaney Promoted to Series Regular on ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’

NCIS Los Angeles Season 12 Episode 14 Kilbride
CBS

NCIS: Los Angeles has promoted recurring guest star Gerald McRaney to series regular ahead of the 13th season.

McRaney has appeared on the CBS procedural drama since 2014, playing retired U.S. Navy Admiral Hollis Kilbride, a longtime friend of Henrietta “Hetty” Lange (Linda Hunt), the current Operations Manager for the Office of Special Projects branch of NCIS in Los Angeles. Kilbride often offers his advice and counsel to the NCIS crew during their undercover operations.

“When you have an actor of Gerald McRaney’s caliber, you do everything you can to make sure you get him as often as possible,” executive producer R. Scott Gemmill told Deadline. “Admiral Kilbride has been an esteemed part of our universe for seven years now and we look forward to viewers seeing him come in and shake up our NCIS: LA world.”

McRaney’s promotion comes after longtime series regulars Barrett Foa and Renée Felice Smith recently exited the show. Foa and Smith’s respective characters, Tech Operator Eric Beale and Intelligence Analyst Nell Jones, left the U.S. behind to begin a new life in Tokyo, Japan, at the end of Season 12.

In May, Gemmill highly praised McRaney’s work during an interview with TVLine. “I have been a huge fan of his forever,” he stated. “I mean, I grew up watching him and I was really happy when we had him on the show the first time, a few years ago. He’s such a pro and so cool, he raises everybody’s game. He’s so great because he can do comedy, and he can do drama, and he likes to be out running around with guns, because he’s a big hunter in real life. We hope to see a lot more of him.”

McRaney has been acting since the late 1960s, appearing in numerous films and television series throughout his career. He is perhaps best known for his role in the 1980s mystery series Simon & Simon and his turn as antagonist George Hearst in the final season of HBO’s Deadwood. More recently, he played Dr. Nathan Katowski in the NBC series This Is Us, a role which won him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

NCIS: Los Angeles, Season 13, Fall 2021, CBS