‘NCIS: Hawai’i’: Daniela Ruah on Reuniting With LL COOL J & New Challenge as Director
Q&A
NCIS: Los Angeles may have wrapped last year after 14 seasons, but fans are still getting a double dose of Daniela Ruah (who played Kensi Blye) on April 15: She guest stars in the franchise’s 1,000th episode, airing on NCIS, and directed the franchise’s 1,001st episode, with Hawai’i.
Ruah’s no stranger to being behind the camera for the NCISverse. She directed six episodes of LA and one of the mothership earlier this season. “This [Hawai’i episode] was a bigger challenge than the other ones, I think, because it was an incredible storyline, and add to that, that it was a new cast and crew for me, but it was, oh my gosh, I had the absolute best time,” she raves to TV Insider. “I called my husband after day one. I was like, ‘We have to move here. I want to keep working with these guys.’”
In the aptly-titled “The Next Thousand,” when a Marine is murdered during training on the Big Island, the team tracks the suspect deep into the woods and discovers a disturbing secret. Below, Ruah talks about directing this episode, reuniting with her LA co-star LL COOL J (who’s a special guest star on Hawai’i this season), and more.
It’s wild that we’re on 1,001 episodes and counting of the franchise.
Daniela Ruah: I know! And by the way, I am so honored to have been given Episode 1,001. I mean, that’s insane.
When we spoke for one of the episodes of LA you directed, you said you like directing both action and character-driven moments and you get both with this Hawai’i episode. What excited you most about the story when you read the script?
First of all, the case itself really takes you in one direction, and then the episode about three-quarters in kind of flips on its head. … You take the audience on a journey in this episode, for sure.
The fact that we got to shoot in forestry and jungle areas, just the production value, the richness of that was really exciting. And then add to that, the sort of volcanic barren area that you get to contrast that with diving into Tennant’s [Vanessa Lachey] past is also really interesting. Showrunners Matt Bosack, Jan Nash, and Christopher Silber, who wrote the episode, did an exceptional job, not only with the story, but also the dialogue. And oh my gosh, our guest cast was absolutely phenomenal, and they carried this episode just as much as our main cast.
Karen Neal / CBS
The case takes everyone in different directions so you got to play with different pairings.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I have to say, I think Alex [Tarrant] and Noah [Mills] are so charming together. Those guys really love each other in real life. So watching their chemistry, they’re so different. Alex’s character Kai is so zen, and he’s so connected to the island. And then you have Noah’s character, who’s not originally from that area. So that contrast is really cute to play with.
And then, yeah, Kate [Tori Anderson] and Sam [LL COOL J], I loved watching those two together, to be honest with you. The guy who’s so comfortable with himself and is used to using his gut to solve things as well as obviously facts and science, and she’s by-the-book and still learning to kind of relax into a case and just solve it with every tool you have, which includes your gut. So yeah, it was really cool to watch these pairings.
And then Vanessa was such a game player. She was so open to just diving into an intense emotional journey with these scenes that she had. Yeah, I love directing, and every time I direct an episode of something, I’m extremely happy. And this latest one just made me fall in love with directing even more.
You also reunited with LL COOL J and directed him again. And this episode really lets Sam be funny.
I know. I love it when Kate walks in and she’s got all these files and he’s got parfait. [Laughs] Yeah, working with Todd, it is like we never skipped a beat. It’s like no time had passed between seeing him at the end of last year on our show and seeing him now. I mean, in his own words, we’re homies. He’s my guy. It’s been 14 years of growing next to him and finding my stride as an actor and finding my stride as a director. And he’s been nothing but supportive and gracious and kind and open. Yeah, I mean, it’s Todd, it’s Uncle Todd to my kids.
Now that you’ve directed NCIS, NCIS: LA, and NCIS: Hawai’i, is there something you specifically enjoy about directing each one?
I love directing on our show because obviously it’s where I started. It’s the show where I was the most comfortable. I knew the characters, the tone, the rhythm, the crew, the cinematographer who I worked closely with. There were no surprises there. And I had a team of people who knew me so well that they weren’t going to let me fail, if I forget something because I’m new at it and it’s a lot of multitasking. No one was going to let me drop the ball at anything. So I really had that support. I would say that actually goes for all three shows, but that was just where my passion for it all began.
And then the mothership is an incredibly well-oiled machine. I definitely knew the cast from before, not just from crossovers, but our characters got introduced on their show. So I knew a lot of the crew members as well, and the producers and people who started off on set and rose up throughout the years into being into the production office. So there was a big comfort level there. And being a fan of NCIS, I had watched a bunch of episodes prior to that. So I just feel like I knew the characters really, really well, and that brought a lot of comfort to me as a director. I just felt like I was coming home. It was interesting. As soon as I walked onto their set, I was like, “I feel like I’m home.” And this wasn’t even my show.
And then with NCIS: Hawai’i, you have so many exterior scenes—the mothership is set in D.C. but it’s shot in Santa Clarita, so you actually have to be very careful about how you shoot exteriors, not to make it look like you’re in California, you have to make it look like you’re in D.C.. So there’s actually a lot of sets that are built and that you’re inside for. And in Hawai’i, it was more similar to our show where you’re actually shooting where the show is set so you can shoot as much as you want of the outside, and that really visually enriches their show. But also they’re in Season 3, so they’re still finding their characters, and I think it’s really, really fun to be in that process with them of finding new things that they haven’t done before. So, yeah, I just love the NCISverse, let’s face it.
NCIS: Hawai’i, Mondays, 10/9c, CBS
