‘NCIS: Tony & Ziva’ Star Cote de Pablo Says She Declined an Intimacy Coordinator for Show

NCIS: Tony & Ziva star Cote de Pablo revealed she refused an intimacy coordinator on the set of the upcoming spinoff.

The new series is set to premiere in September on Paramount+, and the latest trailer for Tony& Ziva sees the titular former agents getting pretty cozy with each other.

Tony and Ziva’s complicated relationship is nothing new for NCIS fans, and even in the newly released trailer, the pair’s tween daughter wondered if they were getting back together. With things heating up between de Pablo’s Ziva David and Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo, one would think that an intimacy coordinator would be brought in to help with the more mature scenes. But that was not the case. She had a good reason, though.

“Did not need one,” de Pablo told TV Insider. “They asked me first, I think because I’m a female and blah, blah, blah, and I said, ‘I don’t need one. Thank you for offering.’ Michael and I have a lot of trust with each other and are great friends. So, when it comes to shooting these things, we don’t want to be micromanaged. We like to explore it, and we trust each other enough that we allow that to happen.”

“I said, ‘Whatever Cote wants,’ Weatherly recalled. “Love scenes are complicated because that level of nonverbal communication — you kiss someone the way you want to be kissed or you touch someone the way you want to be touched — that is a deep level of communication. Physical interaction starts with trust. Luckily, Cote and I do not have an issue in that area. We had to do that right out of the gate in [NCIS’s ‘Under Covers’] episode.”

Despite not working together in over 10 years, both Weatherly and de Pablo didn’t seem to have any trouble getting back to their old ways. Just from the looks of the trailers, Tony and Ziva’s relationship is like nothing ever changed between them, aside from the fact that they have a tween daughter now. It will be exciting to see them together again when NCIS: Tony & Ziva finally premieres on Sept. 4, only on Paramount+, and for now, fans can take a look at their love story in all seasons of NCIS, available to stream now on Paramount+.