Rocky Carroll didn’t see his final episode of NCIS till it aired. But Carroll — who has performed NCIS Director Leon Vance on the CBS sequence since 2008 — didn’t watch the March 24 episode alone. “I was at a Screen Actors Guild screening in New York City with 150 total strangers. I’m sitting there watching it on screen and my biggest concern, more than anything, was [for it not to be] a boring episode,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m watching it just like the other people and I’m like, ‘Man, that was a damn good episode.’”
That “damn good episode” was bittersweet for longtime NCIS followers. Killing off a fan favourite who anchored the sequence for as a few years as Carroll — particularly after unique star Mark Harmon stepped again as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, higher referred to as Gibbs, on NCIS again in 2019 — was not simply dangerous; it was extremely emotional.
Carroll didn’t know Director Vance would die when the twenty third season of the veteran sequence started. When he first discovered about his destiny, he was caught off guard. But as he thought of Vance dying to avoid wasting the company, he noticed the brilliance in it.
“Once we started filming, once I read the script, I was like: This is actually a really great idea, because for a 500th episode, for 23 years, if you’re not going make a move like this now, you may not ever get the chance. And it’s a really well-written episode,” he says of the “All Good Things” hour ending his 18-year NCIS tenure.
In the episode, NCIS is being shut down by the Department of Defense and handed over to the Army CID. Even although issues are tense and not sure, there’s no indication that Vance or anybody else will lose greater than their job. Vance has been arrested, nonetheless, and is being interrogated. As the episode continues, it appears barely odd, however nothing tremendous alarming. The workforce is fixing a case that would save their company.
Vance, who makes peace with Supervisory Special Agent Alden Parker (Gary Cole), is at the middle recapping a sequence of occasions to his unnamed interrogator (Adhir Kalyan) that explains the place some workforce members have gone, in addition to particulars Vance’s personal heroic actions, together with defusing a bomb within the NCIS proof locker and discovering that CID Agent Dolan Thompson (Matt Cook) is a unclean agent. Sadly, that discovery value Vance his life — as Thompson shoots him thrice in his chest and brokers Parker and McGee (Sean Murray) arrive too late to avoid wasting him. Suddenly, it turns into obvious to everybody watching that Director Vance is lifeless.
As Vance is taking his closing bow, his long-gone pal Ducky seems as his youthful self within the type of present NCIS: Origins star Adam Campbell, who performs that character to information the best way. Before Vance exits towards the white gentle, a montage of previous NCIS moments performs earlier than we hear the voice of his beloved spouse, Jackie (Paula Newsome), who was killed in season six, saying, “Hey, baby” to welcome him to the opposite facet. After his dying, NCIS reopens with Parker getting back from retirement.
Because Vance was solely meant as a recurring position, Carroll feels particularly lucky to have performed him for thus lengthy. “I’ve been in 80 percent of the episodes. Of the 500 episodes, I’ve been in close to 400 of them,” he experiences. Since 2015, he’s additionally been behind the display directing. “They call me Director Director when I’m directing an episode.”
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Carroll to debate his response to the response Vance’s dying has generated, some key particulars relating to his departure and what his future now holds.
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Are you shocked by the outpouring of affection for you and Vance?
I’m very shocked, as a result of after I joined the forged at the tip of season 5, it was not a giant love fest. My character was this character everyone was a bit of cautious of. I used to be type of that stepdad that your mom stated, “This is going to be your new daddy,” and everyone says, “He ain’t my daddy.” That’s type of how I felt. I felt like I had come right into a household, and everyone was trying at me like, “When is he leaving?”
When did you begin feeling that Vance was a part of the household?
It type of occurred organically because the episodes progressed. We may have simply caught to the script and written Vance as this perpetual boss from hell who is available in and makes everyone’s life depressing. But [that changed] over time [as] the actors, and even the writers, realized that [we didn’t have to make] this a one-dimensional character who’s adversarial for the sake of being adversarial.
Mark Harmon and I had a previous relationship; we’d labored collectively in Chicago Hope and we simply began discovering the character. They thought of writing off this character 10 years in the past. The considered killing Leon Vance is just not one thing new. They have been excited about doing this as a plot twist years in the past, however due to what was going down onscreen, and due to the chemistry between Vance and Gibbs, each time they talked about it as a plot twist, everyone would go, “No, we can’t do that. He’s good now. He’s too firmly established.” As the character and tales developed, and we received to see him exterior of his workplace — particularly the episode when Director Vance loses his spouse, who’s tragically killed — he now shares the identical tragic expertise as the principle character Gibbs [and] they’re bonded in tragedy. I feel that was the start of when our die-hard followers have been like, “He’s one of us now, he’s a part of the NCIS family.”
Would Vance have usually been carrying a vest?
No! I used to at all times joke [that] Vance in all probability doesn’t even know the place his gun is correct now. If there was an emergency, he’d need to rifle by means of all of the drawers in his workplace, as a result of he’d be like, “Where the hell did I put this? I hadn’t used it in a while.” So no, and that was why that really made sense. When you see the scene, you go, “Thank God he’s wearing a vest.” And it’s like, “Why would a bureaucrat who sits in his office where you’d have to get through such a chain of security to even knock on his door be sitting in his office wearing a vest?” So he doesn’t put on a vest. In his thoughts’s eye, he thought he was carrying a vest.
It was simply so onerous to imagine that Vance was lifeless. It was stunning!
That is strictly what the target was. After 23 years and 500 episodes, the executives, producers and writers may have simply performed [an] episode with a complete bunch of flashbacks and retrospectives about scenes which have occurred previously, and perhaps deliver out a few shock visitor stars, and the viewers would have been like, “Oh, that was nice.” We may have simply gone down that street. Your private response is, “My character is being killed off. I’m not going to be in the last scene on the last day of the final season of NCIS. I’m not going to be there when they board up the windows and say, “OK that’s it. Everybody go home.’”
But the one factor I do have that perhaps the opposite characters gained’t get is that my character had a really particular ending. Real closure. A pal of mine known as and stated, “A lot of people probably forget what happened to Gibbs in his very last scene, but nobody will forget what happened to Director Vance in his last episode.”
Usually once you get to the tip of a sequence like NCIS, which is in season 23, who is aware of how for much longer it’s going to go. In that closing episode, the place you attempt to tie up all of the free ends and put a button on everyone’s story, someone’s going to get disregarded. The viewers goes to observe and go, “Well, what happened to so and so? What happened to Agent Knight [Katrina Law]? What happened to Torres [Wilmer Valderrama]?” I do know I’ll be the one character, no matter how the sequence ends, the place individuals will bear in mind what occurred.
Vance goes to shoot up as probably the most stunning dying, for certain. It was a beautiful sendoff and you might be proper, so many characters by no means get that acknowledgment. And then there’s been ongoing complaints that Black characters don’t typically get correct sendoffs on TV exhibits.
The factor I’m most happy with is that I knew all these issues have been in play after I began enjoying the character. Because I had such a fantastic working relationship with Mark Harmon, we didn’t have to hold an indication on it. All of a sudden, this is without doubt one of the hottest exhibits on the planet, and the principle character has a boss who’s an individual of shade. Every time we have been onscreen collectively, you didn’t need to say, “There’s a Black bureaucrat and the white agent.” You’re going to look [at the show] by means of no matter lens you’ve been creating. If you’re a individual the place the dynamic of race is essential, that’s the lens you’re going to look by means of. And I’m OK with that. So we didn’t have to jot down towards it [because] persons are going to see it. And the individuals who say, “I don’t see color,” it’s like, “It’s OK to see color because this is what it is.”
When Wilmer Valderrama joined the forged of NCIS, the very first thing he stated to me was, “I bear in mind once you joined the present, and I believed, ‘Wow, he broke the color barrier. You were the Jackie Robinson of this series, because you were the first person of color as a [main character] series regular.’” And now you look at the racial, ethnic landscape of NCIS [and] it’s fairly wonderful. We’ve come a great distance.
I at all times auditioned for roles that I knew weren’t historically written for a Black man or an individual of shade. And the roles that I’m most happy with are those the place I do know that the executives and the producers stated we by no means actually regarded at it in that capability. But this works, and I type of really feel like that’s type of been my calling card for the final 30 years.
You first began directing on NCIS in 2015. How did that come about? Did you recognize you wished to direct?
I didn’t know I wished to direct. Everybody round me stated I ought to. I had been at the present for about eight seasons. And that is pre-COVID, so it was like a school campus. We had guests on set all day. People introduced their canine. People had household visiting. It was a tour each day. My managers and brokers and all of the individuals related to me would at all times say, “Look at the rapport you have with the cast, the way you get along with the crew, you’d make a great director.”
So yearly, each time it was time to renegotiate a contract, my representatives would go, “Should we put in; you want to direct?” I used to be like, “No. Stop pushing this thing on me.” And lastly, I stated, “You know what? In order to nip this in the bud, I’m going to go into the executive producer’s office and tell them that I’m interested in directing. They’re going to give me 30 reasons why it’s not possible, and then we can put this to bed.”
I walked into the producer’s workplace, and I stated, “I’m interested if it would be possible for me to someday direct episodes of NCIS.” And the chief producer regarded at me and stated, “How about eight weeks from today?” It was nearly like they have been ready for me to return in and ask.
You directed some episodes this season.
I did “Gone Girls” and “Her,” the episode the place Eleanor Bishop comes again that simply aired [March 3], the primary new episode of 2026, I directed. I didn’t direct the episode the place Vance loses his life — as a result of I used to be a bit of busy in that one. But I directed three episodes this season. I informed everyone this by no means actually felt that closing to me as a result of after we shot “All Good Things” the place Vance loses his life, a month later, I got here again and directed one other episode of NCIS that hasn’t aired but. But that’s the way it took place, and actually, on a dare, I went in, requested if I may direct, and the remaining is historical past.
What does life after NCIS appear like?
That’s a superb query. I feel it’s going to look quite a bit like life earlier than NCIS, with more cash within the financial institution. It’s like Charles Barkley stated, “I haven’t worked a day in my adult life.” The final job I’ve had I used to be 25; I’m 62 now. I haven’t labored most of my grownup life. So there’s life after NCIS. The stunning factor about what we do is also that 62 as an actor is just not like being 62 as an expert baseball participant. I can nonetheless do what I do so long as I maintain taking [my] reminiscence complement. I may in all probability do that for one more 25 years. So it’s stunning; the panorama is type of huge open.
Mark Harmon texted me: “You’re a director, you’re an actor. The field is pretty wide open. You can choose to do it, or, because you’ve had 18 years of consecutive work and you haven’t been stupid about your money, you can choose not to do anything for about a year. Or you can just be the Black Anthony Bourdain and travel around the world and eat and drink.” That’s truly my dream job. … Honestly, I’m in no hurry to leap again right into a sequence the place I’m working 12 hours a day on the set. If someone would pay me to journey world wide and immerse myself of their tradition, eat and drink after which produce it on CNN, one thing like Stanley Tucci, I’d try this in a heartbeat.
Do you will have any favourite episodes?
When you’ve received 392 beneath your belt, it’s onerous to choose a favourite. That flashback within the final scene when Vance is about to go to the opposite facet and stroll towards the sunshine, we do a video, type of retrospective. Just snippets of all these scenes. And that was my first time watching the episode. That was the one time the place I received choked up watching it as an viewers member, as a result of I spotted, “Wow, look at all the years, all the time and all the people.” That’s how I bear in mind my time on NCIS. Like a sequence of simply little moments.
Will you continue to watch the present? And how do you assume the present will take care of Vance’s departure?
Oh, that continues to be to be seen. Not solely will I nonetheless watch the present; I’ll nonetheless be a part of it. I’ve been requested to return again and direct subsequent season, although my character is lifeless. But we even have coined the time period “ghost stars.” We have extra characters who’ve been killed off who come again as apparitions and spirits. And we do flashbacks, the place individuals have died way back are very important. So I wouldn’t be shocked [if] Vance is perhaps extra prevalent lifeless than he was when he was alive.
Interesting.
I simply thought I’d tease that a bit of bit.
NCIS airs Tuesday nights at 8 pm ET/PT and streams on Paramount+.
