"It was frustration and anger that someone should just walk out on us," McCallum recounted in an interview with Digital Spy. "I just don't understand how a leading lady in a show that's worldwide, who ostensibly wants to have a career as an actress, suddenly walks away from such a gem and just vanishes a couple of days before we start production."
Which isn't to say that the team behind the scenes missed a beat. "This business is merciless so right away the whole team of writers gets in and rewrites the first five shows," the actor continued. "When it happened, you think, 'This is a dangerous road to go down' – but they pulled it off."
The abrupt exit by Cote de Pablo, who played Ziva David for a full decade before leaving, would be a subject that her "NCIS" co-stars would have a hard time escaping in the following years. In January of 2016, McCallum hosted a Reddit AMA where he was asked about Ziva's departure. "At the time I was astonished when Cote left," he wrote, "but in retrospect, it seems that she was not up to handling the demands that the character put upon her. I still don't understand her deeper motives."
On the plus side, de Pablo would eventually return to the show in an unannounced surprise season 16 twist, and nothing upsetting has been associated with "NCIS" ever since.
