‘NCIS: Sydney’ Star Olivia Swann Previews ‘Bigger, Bolder, and Better’ Season 3 (Exclusive)

NCIS: Sydney Season 3 is right around the corner, and star Olivia Swann spoke to PopCulture.com about what to expect.

In “Gut Instinct,” premiering on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, “The discovery of two missing U.S. Navy aviators adrift in the Coral Sea leads the team to expose a sinister terrorist plot.”

Now that Sydney is in its third season, the series is really starting to come into its own and keeping fans hooked. There will be a lot to look forward to in the new season, and not just because the series is paired with NCIS and NCIS: Origins for CBS’ NCIS Tuesday. Swann shared what Season 3 will be all about, what the cliffhanger in the Season 2 finale means, what might even be next for her character, Mackey, and Todd Lasance’s JD, and much more. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

PopCulture: What can you preview for Season 3 of NCIS: Sydney?

Olivia Swann: So Season 3 is definitely bigger, bolder, and better, I’d say. We’ve really kicked it up a notch, and we have more action. We have more drama. We have more intrigue than we’ve ever had before. And, the season’s really about the idea that the past catches up with you. And so you kind of see a lot of our characters dealing with the fallout of decisions and events from their past, which is really, really cool and very, very exciting.

PC: Going off of that, the Season 2 finale ended on a bit of a cliffhanger with Blue meeting with a mysterious lady. What can you tease about that?

Swann: So that also links with the idea that the past catches up with you, and we delve into Blue’s backstory in a way that we’ve never done before. And it is so intriguing. It is so fascinating. And Mavournee [Hazel], who plays Blue, is so good. She’s so good. I’m so excited for everyone to see what she does. But also, it’s really fun because as the audience learns about her, so do our characters. So do the rest of the team. So kind of in real time, the audience and the team are learning so much more about this Blue that they thought they knew, but they didn’t. And it’s a very, very cool moment.

PC: Mackey and JD have been growing close over the first two seasons, and it certainly seems like there is chemistry between them. Where do we see them in Season 3?

Swann: So actually, the beginning of Season 3, Mackey’s dealing with the fallout with Darwin, she’s kind of struggling with kind of trusting her gut because she made such a bad ball in Darwin. So there’s a slight bit of friction between the two of them, and there’s a bit of almost awkwardness between the two of them, which is very important to play because, as you said, we’ve seen them grow closer. We’ve seen this chemistry. We’ve seen that there’s something that is a little bit more than just friendship. And so that does kind of continue through this season, but in the sense that Mackey has this awareness that they are the leaders of the team, and there is a hierarchy.

And so she knows that shifting that can cause a lot of problems. So there is this element of maybe it’s what she wants most, but can she act on that? Probably not. It’s that level of getting close to somebody, but also having these restrictions on that closeness that I think is really compelling and really watchable. And we get to see them both kind of deal with that, someone that you see every day, and someone that you go into life and death situations with, and how that affects both of them. And it’s really fun.

PC: What has it been like playing off that dynamic with Todd?

Swann: It’s great. I mean, I have to make sure I don’t speak about Todd for an hour because I will. He is so fantastic. We get on so well, and we have a beautiful friendship off-screen, so that just helps amplify everything with Mackey and JD on-screen. And so being able to kind of play with that dynamic with him is just so easy because it’s just a kind of amplification of the friendship that we already have.

And so there’s never any kind of questions like, “Oh, should we do this? Should we do that?” We just play. And so it’s always fun to do fun scenes, serious scenes, scenes where they’re bickering because we just have a trust in it and an enthusiasm with each other that just helps sell all of that stuff.

PC: Has there been anything that you were really excited to explore more in Season 3, especially since the series is going to be touching a lot on the past?

Swann: Yes. I am really excited for this season because we do delve into Mackey’s vulnerabilities and the things that make her who she is, and the cracks in her armor that she’s tried so hard to feel and keep together for the last two seasons. And this is kind of where we start understanding who she is and why she’s the person that she is and how her life has kind of come to be. And so we see her being tested in ways that we never have before, and it’s really electrifying. And it also means that I got to learn about Mackey myself and figure out who she is in moments of fear and vulnerability and super stress and all those kind of heightened emotions that we never really see from her. So it’s very cool, and I think it’s gonna be quite present to see this side of her.

PC: What else can you preview for either the premiere episode or what’s coming up in the remainder of the season?

Swann: In Episode 1, it’s definitely a kind of time crunch, crime-solving case. There’s a terrorist on the loose. There’s bomb threats. And time is ticking down, so the team really has to get a move on to solve it. But throughout the season, we discover that there’s a kind of overarching conspiracy theory that links to Mackey. And it’s really kind of interesting and interwoven, and it accumulates in a very, very cool and tense storyline. So it’s gonna be dope.

NCIS: Sydney Season 3 premieres on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.