SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from Season 1 of NCIS: Origins on CBS.
Given the car crash bang ending to Season 1 of NCIS: Origins, it is perhaps unfair to ask Mariel Molino about her take on Season 2. When asked the question, however, by Deadline, her thoughts echoed those of many fans: “I hope Lala is alive… and I hope I have a job.”
Alluding to a memorable scene in season 1 where her character Cecilia ‘Lala’ Dominguez and Austin Stowell’s Gibbs get up close in a pool, she added another request for Season 2: “If she is [alive], I hope that finally something happens with Lala and Gibbs. You know what I mean, come on, either kiss me or don’t.”
Molino and Stowell were at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival and fielded questions about their CBS series.
Stowell said, just weeks out from production starting, he wants to know about Season 2 as much as the fans of Season 1. He talked about his chemistry with Molino and recalled a scene outside an interrogation room where her character confronts Gibbs and lets loose.
“It was the scene where she confronts Franks and [Gibbs]. I said: ‘Will you please just get mad at me?” he recalled. “For her to yell at me in that way, it was crushing and you can see it in my eyes. When I watch that it takes me back to that memory. It just it hurts, because I’m not method by any means, but I do allow the emotions to fill me, and so that’s one that will stay with me.”
Stowell also admitted that stepping into the shoes of a character made famous by Mark Harmon was, and remains, nerve-wracking, and he’s fine with that.
“I was scared for so many reasons,” he said. “There were just so many first times. For me, it was the first time doing a network TV show, first time playing a character that had already been portrayed before me, first time to be number one on a call sheet.”
He continued: “I’m someone who likes pressure; I like to be put in that situation. I want the ball in my hands at the bottom of the ninth. I feel like I do thrive in that situation. But I don’t think I’ll ever quite get comfortable because, at the end of the day, Gibbs will always be Mark Harmon’s character, and I’m playing the younger version of that.”
With the older Gibbs character part of TV folklore, Molino was asked who she would pick to play the latter-day Lala. Noting some Italian heritage, her take was pretty quick. It should be Monica Bellucci.
