‘NCIS: Hawai’i’: Yasmine Al-Bustami Previews ‘Alarming’ Protection Detail — Plus Kacy Wedding Talk Hopes
Q&A
Coming up on NCIS: Hawai’i is one protection detail assignment Lucy (Yasmine Al-Bustami) really doesn’t want. And the longer it goes on? The more that’s true.
In the March 25 episode, “Serve and Protect,” the team is tasked with protecting Tatiana, the daughter of a Russian oligarch carrying a deadly secret. Stuck with the hardest part of that—actually spending time with Tatiana—is Lucy, and the other woman knows much more about her than she’s comfortable with.
Al-Bustami previews the assignment, talks about Lucy and Kate’s (Tori Anderson) future, including that conversation about weddings, and much more.
Lucy must protect the daughter of a Russian oligarch, and that gets intense both in terms of the action and also in terms of someone who knows stuff about her she’d rather she didn’t. What can you preview?
Yasmine Al-Bustami: First of all, she doesn’t even want to detail or even just cover this person who has shown up and she would rather be doing other things. But the fact that she does, like you just mentioned, know some information about her personal life that she tries really hard to keep on the down-low or doesn’t really talk about or is basically just trying to forget and is trying to recreate herself and create a whole new life for herself and has done a good job at that, for someone to come in and know very specific details that she doesn’t even tell her closest people like Kate, her girlfriend, it’s alarming. But I would also like to think that it’s a little bit intriguing of just how and why does she know all of this stuff about me? I feel like it kind of brings her closer to her.
There’s a very interesting dynamic between Lucy and Tatiana throughout the episode, which I like.
It’s like a love-hate thing. I know. And I think Lucy’s feeling the same thing. That’s what you see, like she hates her, but then she’s drawn in for some reason. I think it is because she just knows all these details about her. And then as she gets to know her—as you see, without wanting to get to know her, mind you, she’s trying to not talk about anything, get as far away as she can, but still protect her, do her job—[and] the more that they’re in the trenches together, the more that she’s realizing, “Oh, I think there is something. We’re kind of the same.” She’s starting to see that, which is kind of beautiful to watch unravel.
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What are you enjoying most about where Lucy and Kate’s relationship is this season?
That they’re finally, it seems like, in a good, healthy place, instead of all the ups and downs. Drama and everything is always fun to play and it’s TV of course, but it’s kind of nice once you do all of that and get past all of that, that you see the characters and the relationship has gotten to a place where it does seem stable, which is also nice for me as Yasmine to play as well in a romantic relationship.
Then you get to have fun with things like, wait, why are you close friends with Kai (Alex Tarrant) now?
Yeah, which is cute. Now you’re just seeing all the little nitpicky stuff. I feel like it’s just a real, your everyday relationship icks. I just learned what ick is. So I just used it right now because I’m with the times. [Laughs]
But they did just talk about weddings. Lucy did say she figured she’d never get married, but how is she feeling about that now? Is that something that’s going to come up again for them?
What I would love to see—I haven’t discussed it with our writers—is that because this is the first time that you’re seeing them kind of talk about that and they didn’t really go into too much detail, but you see their individual viewpoints on it because they have their own viewpoints on it, I feel like if they were to discuss it some more, it seems like Kate is a little more open to and her family is very accepting to the fact that she would have a wedding, but I feel like Kate could possibly have Lucy see a different or open her up more to the idea of possibly having a wedding with Kate, with the right person. And right now, I hope it’s Kate.
What’s coming up for Lucy and Kate on and off the job? I loved them undercover together.
It’s so fun. First, I just love doing anything undercover, but whenever it’s with Kate—that was the first time that we got to do something like that. That was really cool. It’s one thing if you’re doing undercover by yourself, but if you’re with somebody else, your buddy, then it makes it so much more fun. So I hope they do more of that. That would be fun. And I hope, like we were just saying, you see their relationship continuing to evolve and starting to explore more of them not just working now—we see them working together a lot—but more of just their personal lives and opening up. Even with this episode that’s coming out with Lucy having these discussions with Tatiana, I’m hoping that that kind of opens up conversations to Kate as well.
Are we going to see them at home anytime soon?
I hope we do, but we don’t in this episode because Lucy is trying to just save her life. And I don’t know if we see them in the next, no. I think they’re just so busy working. They’re busy gals working.
This next episode touches on Lucy’s family a bit, but how much are we going to hear about them and how Lucy feels about them this season? And what about meeting some people in her family?
I would love all of that to happen, Meredith, me and you both. I’ve only ever talked about my family. I know some of the other folks we’ve met [family members], mainly Tennant’s [Vanessa Lachey] family, we’ve met all of her family pretty much. But no, we haven’t seen any of my family. I hope that happens. I feel like this upcoming episode is the one where you learn more about my family just because of Tatiana coming in and sharing all of that. I mean, I learned more about it, too. It’s cool. I hope it continues. I would like to also put faces to these people that I’m talking about.
Daniela Ruah directed an upcoming episode and you worked with her on the crossover last year. What can you preview about that episode and talk about working with her as a director?
Oh my gosh, she’s freaking awesome. I wish that I was able to be on that episode with her. That was one episode that Lucy was not in, but I’ve only worked with Daniela as actors and I haven’t gotten a chance to work with her as her directing and me acting. I saw her when she was here because they come into town while we’re still filming to do pre-production for the next episode. So I got to see her. So that was really nice and [we were able to] catch up just a little bit. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in that episode, but I know that she did amazing. I know the crew loved her. It was her first time directing NCIS: Hawaii. I know she’s done NCIS: LA and NCIS.
Yeah, hopefully she’ll do another one. And maybe we can see Kensi and Lucy onscreen together again. That’s the great thing about this franchise—amazing characters.
Agreed. And I also feel like there’s so much more—it’s just continuing to grow. I want to meet all the people from Sydney still. I’m like, “Okay, well, I have to meet Sydney first.” But then also y’all are bringing in Origins. I think there’s going to be one in Europe. I’m like, there’s so many people to meet, my gosh.
NCIS: Hawai’i, Mondays, 10/9c, CBS
