Surprising Twist: You Won’t Believe Which NCIS Star Played a Child on the Show!

According to Entertainment Weekly, a 2013 episode of “NCIS” delved into the origins of Abby Sciuto’s fascination with forensic science, depicting flashback scenes of her as a young child. The younger version of Pauley Perrette’s character, portrayed by Brighton Sharbino, may be recognizable to viewers as she also played the unsettling, zombie-loving Lizzie Samuels on “The Walking Dead.”

In one of the most emotional scenes on “The Walking Dead,” Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) instructs Lizzie to “just look at the flowers” before making the difficult decision to shoot the troubled young girl. Despite Sharbino’s early start in acting, Perrette’s journey into the profession took a different route. Perrette, who began modeling at the age of two, didn’t discover her passion for acting until college in New York, where she was studying criminal science.

Her decision to pursue acting was influenced by a chance revelation. “I overheard a girl say she made $3,000 shooting a commercial,” Perrette shared on Twitter. Serendipitously, she learned about a director likely to hire her, leading to more than a dozen jobs from her first audition, as reported by WANE 15.

Reflecting on her childhood interests, Perrette told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she used to read “science textbooks” for enjoyment. This early curiosity and preparation inadvertently laid the groundwork for her role on “NCIS,” a role she embraced years later with a wealth of relevant knowledge.