Mark Harmon Finally Speaks Out! His True Feelings About Recasting Gibbs in NCIS Will Shock You!

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After playing the iconic character Leroy Jethro Gibbs for nearly two decades on NCIS, it’s understandable that Mark Harmon feels a deep connection to the role. Now, with the new prequel series NCIS: Origins, another actor is stepping into Gibbs’ shoes. So, who is playing the younger version of Gibbs, and how does Harmon feel about the recasting?

Who Plays Young Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS: Origins?

This fall, CBS will introduce NCIS: Origins, a prequel set in 1991 that follows a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Austin Stowell has been cast as the young Gibbs, becoming the third actor to portray the character, following Mark Harmon and his son Sean, who played young Gibbs in flashbacks on the original NCIS series.

During the Television Critics Association press tour in July, Harmon, who serves as both narrator and executive producer of the prequel, spoke to Parade about his criteria for finding the right actor to portray Gibbs.

“I always thought there was a calm that was important,” Harmon explained. “It’s a lot for an actor to come into a room with that kind of a burden of a load to try to say, ‘Can I physically look like that person? Can I be that person?’ I thought Austin just was himself.”

Harmon wasn’t alone in recognizing Stowell’s potential. Co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal also saw something special in him. “He walked out of the room, and she said, ‘That guy is a star,'” Harmon recounted. “The truth of it is he lit the room. You’re in a room for a long time with people coming in one after another and you just go with an instinct. That’s what we’ve done.”

Monreal added that Stowell captured the essence of Gibbs. “What I was excited about was the fact that he had the core of what I think Gibbs is, which is this broken character but also this immense strength. I feel like that’s really a difficult balance to achieve, and I think Austin does that.”

More: Why did Mark Harmon leave NCIS?

NCIS: Origins was conceived by Sean Harmon, who expressed his pride in stepping into the role his father made famous. “It’s an absolute honor to have stepped into the role and essentially to play a character my dad created over so many years,” Sean said at the TCA Tour in July. However, he also mentioned that he never intended to pursue a career playing Gibbs. Instead, he wanted to tell the story of “a guy who’s got something broken inside, a guy who at one point in his life is very much at risk of going down a much darker path. And what about this job made that choice different?”

The new series aims to explore these aspects of Gibbs’ character and will premiere this fall on CBS.