Maria Bello Talks About Jack & Gibbs’ ‘Great Love’ — and Where She’s Headed Post-‘NCIS’

Kate Hahn February 26, 2021

It’s no secret that Maria Bello is leaving long-running crime procedural NCIS on which she’s played smart, savvy forensic psychologist “Jack” Sloane since 2017. The actress even shared pics of her emotional final day on set on her Instagram account this past December.

“I’ve had this commitment for years to make a movie, The Woman King, with Viola Davis,” Bello tells TV Insider. “It’s a female Braveheart based on 5,000 women warriors in [the 18th- and 19th-century African kingdom of] Dahomey, modern-day Benin. The French said they were the biggest badasses they’d ever fought.”

Also on the docket, she says, a pilot in Haiti that combines her love of “adventure travel and women’s history.”

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A post shared by Maria Bello (@officialmariabello)

But first, on March 2 her character has a major NCIS episode, when she and head honcho Gibbs (Mark Harmon) go to Afghanistan after Sloane’s old friend and a busload of schoolgirls she was chaperoning are kidnapped. (The Taliban may be involved.)

“[Gibbs and Sloane] want to do this mission together,” Bello says. “People ask, ‘Are they sleeping together?’ Safe to say [this episode] will be a continuation of that great love they have for each other.”

For more about the episode, including the amount of tears she shed when leaving the show, watch our interview above.

NCIS, Tuesday, March 2, 8/7c, CBS