Steven Weber Looks Back on ‘NCIS: New Orleans’ & Working With Scott Bakula

Twelve years ago, the NCISverse wasn’t what it is now. There was the mothership, NCIS: LA, and NCIS: New Orleans; the two spinoffs have since ended. However, thanks to the NCIS: Partners & Probies podcast, hosted by Brian Dietzen and Diona Reasonover from the mothership, we can look back on the entire franchise, including those shows no longer with us. Weber reflected on his time on New Orleans in the Tuesday, July 28, episode of the podcast.

Initially, he didn’t know that his character, Mayor Hamilton, would be sticking around but rather be someone who might come back here and there; he ended up doing 18 episodes across the first four (of seven) seasons.

“I think they clearly wanted to have that character in the mix. It wasn’t always centered on him, clearly,” Weber said. “I got the call, and I was offered it, which was a real bonus. And I love New Orleans. I had spent a bunch of time down there and I knew [Scott] Bakula a little bit and Gary [Glasberg, creator], and so we went down there and I did the pilot.” (The premise was first introduced in a two-part backdoor pilot on NCIS, titled “Crescent City.”)

Weber went on to admit that he wasn’t sure exactly how he met Bakula or how well-acquainted they were prior to working together on NCIS: New Orleans.

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“I think we did meet because I remember seeing him — not a lot of people know that he was a song and dance man. He’s a musical comedy dude. Years ago, I saw him do a musical in New York City at a small theater,” he recalled. “And he was amazing. And then I began to see him working. So, you know, maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. I don’t know if I actually knew him before. Maybe I’d met him at some audition or something like that because we’re sort of in the same type in a sense.”

Weber called Bakula “a good number one,” explaining, “When you’re a number one on the call sheet, you’re the star and you literally have a number one next to your name. You can either be a total ass or you can be like Gary was, which is a nurturing leader, and he was a nurturing, affable guy, but also as number one, as the star of the show, he had creative input, and he used it. But it was smart, and he was respected, and he couldn’t have been nicer to me and all the guests — because it is like you’re hosting, and you have new people coming on all the time, and you can either treat them like crap or you can welcome them into the fold and they produce. They do better work if they’re not being tortured.”

When Dietzen chimed to say that it sounded like Bakula “set the tone well,” Weber agreed, “He totally did.”

Hamilton was “mostly a villain,” as Weber put it. “He was mayor of New Orleans after all. And so, a little villainy is — you have an obligation to do some shady things.” He recalled filming in what used to be city hall. “It looked beautiful. It was a gorgeous kind of New Orleans architecture. And they had portraits of the mayors going back maybe 100 years. And somebody told me that about 85% of the portraits of the mayors had been imprisoned.”

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As for how he justified the harm he caused, “He’s emblematic of the type of person who’s in power today who seems to put their empathy aside, if they ever had any, to serve the gods of commerce and capitalism. So he’s a guy that has found pleasure from money and power, not through helping people. Although I’m sure in his family history, because he’s from the deep South, he has moments of beauty and compassion as well as horror and selfishness, malignant narcissism and everything,” Weber shared.

“But look, he’s in a business which is politics, where if you want to succeed, I’m sure he told himself, ‘I want to support my family, and I want some candy. I want to make money, so I’m going to have to be less nice and get rid of my empathy,’x he continued. “I think he told himself that because there’s a there’s a vast network that supports that type of behavior. So, I think he was fine with it.”

NCIS: New Orleans, Complete Series, Streaming Now, Paramount+