NCIS star and NCIS: ORIGINS executive producer Mark Harmon is walking back into Gibbs’ world, but he is making one thing clear: series lead Austin Stowell still owns the room.
“Austin leads, not me,” Harmon told USA TODAY as he discussed his expanded role in the show’s third season.
Harmon will appear as present-day Leroy Jethro Gibbs in all 10 episodes, a sizable jump from his earlier work as the prequel’s narrator and occasional guest star. CBS says a season-long mystery connected to Gibbs’ 1990s Camp Pendleton days pulls his older self into the action.
The two versions of Gibbs will remain in separate timelines, with Stowell carrying the story of the younger agent while Harmon’s Gibbs leaves his Alaska retirement to investigate the past. That setup gives longtime viewers more of the character they love without shoving aside the actor who has spent two seasons building him from the ground up.
Harmon did not leave that reassurance to chance. After NCIS: ORIGINS executive producer and showrunner David J. North pitched the Season 3 arc, Harmon called Stowell to make sure his return did not feel like a takeover.
“It speaks to the man that Mark is that he called to tell me, ‘I hope you don’t feel I’m stepping on your toes,’” Stowell recalled. “I told him, ‘It’s hard to feel you’re stepping on my toes when I’m standing on your shoulders.’”
The gracious exchange fits a partnership that clicked before Stowell ever said an audition line. When producers searched for the young Gibbs in 2024, Harmon said Stowell changed the energy in the room almost immediately.
Related: Everything We Know About Mark Harmon’s NCIS: ORIGINS Role
“I felt the room jump a little when Austin came in, before he said anything,” Harmon told PEOPLE.
“I’ll just say it, that’s a movie star,” someone said after Stowell left the room, according to Harmon.
Stowell has shouldered more than an impersonation. NCIS: ORIGINS begins with Gibbs as a grieving, unsteady young agent, years before he becomes the flinty leader viewers met on NCIS, and the series asks what kind of friendships, losses and choices could forge that transformation.
The show also carries a family connection behind the camera. Harmon’s son, NCIS: ORIGINS executive producer Sean Harmon, first proposed exploring Gibbs’ early years after playing the younger version of the character in NCIS flashbacks.
Family shaped Mark Harmon’s earlier career decisions, too. He stepped away from the flagship series in 2021 after appearing across 19 seasons.
“It was time to get back to the family and spend less time at the studio,” he told USA TODAY.
“It was important to be able to make pancakes on Saturday morning,” he told PEOPLE in 2023 while reflecting on raising his sons. The long NCIS schedule sometimes cost him sleep, he said, but it also kept his work anchored in Los Angeles and allowed him to remain present at home.
“Grip it and rip it” has become the Season 3 mantra on set. Harmon said the team’s job is not to predict the show’s distant future, but to make the strongest 10 episodes it can right now.
There is real promise in a veteran star who can return without demanding the spotlight and a younger lead secure enough to welcome him. Still, families should remember that Movieguide® advised caution after the show’s two-part premiere because of crude language, violence, drug references, occult imagery and a bedroom scene.
NCIS: ORIGINS Season 3 premieres Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, with streaming on Paramount+. Harmon, for his part, is keeping the goal pure Gibbs.
“We do the 10 best shows that we can,” Harmon said.”That’s everything.”
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