‘NCIS: Origins’ Was Supposed to Be a Streaming Show — Austin Stowell Reveals Script Differences

When Austin Stowell first got a script for NCIS: Origins, he deleted it because he wasn’t interested in doing network television. But, as he shared on the latest NCIS: Partners & Probies podcast episode, what he originally read was different from what ended up being the show — because it wasn’t originally going to be on broadcast television.

“Origins, since its inception, has been a wildly different tone than the mothership in a beautiful way,” Brian Dietzen, who hosts the podcast with Diona Reasonover, noted as he asked if creators David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal talked to Stowell about the show’s storytelling style and how it would differ from a standard procedural, during their initial meetings.

“Yeah, they said they wanted to do the True Detective version of NCIS,” Stowell said on the podcast. “That sounded really good to me. The script I originally read was — because it was originally supposed to be a streaming series, never supposed to be on CBS, and so the language was R-rated, and everything was heightened up a bit, and there was this grit to it and darkness I thought was a really interesting take on what was the biggest franchise in the world.”

Sonja Flemming/CBS

The Origins star knew about NCIS and the character of Gibbs — and how beloved he is — before he got the role. “I didn’t watch all the time, but one of those things you put on in a hotel room,” he said.

And so, after he spoke with North and Monreal, “it felt right” to take on the role, he continued. “I trusted them from the start. It was their passion for the project and their verve for this new version of the franchise that felt like it could really catch on and be new and interesting while also serving the story of the mothership, while serving Gibbs. At the end of the day, all I’m trying to do is honor this character that Mark created, which is a gigantic responsibility.”

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Stowell explained, “The power that the character has means that I have to live up to something while also being honest to my own artistic instincts and try and do justice to this version of this guy, 30 years before — this is a very different time in his life, and so how does the instinct we see of Mark’s character grow through the experiences of his youth? That was just really interesting to me.”

NCIS: Origins, Season 3 Premiere, Tuesday, October 6, 10/9c, CBS