Mark Harmon Was Attracted To NCIS Because Of One Reason

The CBS military police procedural “NCIS” has gone through a lot over its 22 seasons (and counting), and its central Major Case Response Team has had many members. Still, one name continues to rise above the rest: Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), who watched over his NCIS team for the vast majority of the show and who has become virtually synonymous with the series.

Gibbs is a fascinating character in many ways, not least because of his name. Completely out of sync with the punchy, powerful names of your average procedural drama character, “Leroy Jethro Gibbs” is a mouthful. As it happens, this is one of the very things that attracted Harmon when he first became acquainted with the “NCIS” script.  “I was sent the ‘NCIS’ script, and I … read the name ‘Leroy Jethro Gibbs,’ and the name stopped me,” Harmon told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024. “People say, ‘What attracted you to the story?’ I said, ‘The name.’ There’s more to it than that, obviously, but I didn’t expect to be taken in like I