Despite NCIS packing a punch by killing off a main character in its 500th episode, the actor playing the role didn’t know they were getting written off.
Rocky Carroll broke his silence on Tuesday, March 24, about Leon Vance getting shot by a CID agent before dying from the fatal wound. Carroll, 62, told TVLine that he “was not the catalyst for this happening.”
“I also don’t think at the beginning of the season that it was planned,” he noted, explaining that the episode was filmed at the end of November 2025 and beginning of December 2025. He went on to note that found out Vance was dying “two episodes before we shot it.”
Carroll recalled executive producer Steven D. Binder telling him they wanted to send “shockwaves through the TV community and the fan base” with the landmark episode.
In a separate interview, Carroll revealed it “was not” his choice to leave NCIS.
“I guess the dramaturge and the director in me, after 23 years, you’ve pretty much told every story, and a lot of them you’ve told more than once,” Carroll, who has been on NCIS since 2008, told TV Insider. “So, when it was laid all out, and when they did tell me the whole plot line and the story, my first thought, completely candidly, was, ‘It’s actually a terrific story.’”
While reflecting on his time on NCIS, Carroll said he didn’t expect to play Vance for nearly two decades.
“It’s been quite a run. And I was so proud of the episode,” he added. “There’s too much good to be depressed about it.”
NCIS sent Vance out on a high with a montage of him through the years with Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Tony (Michael Weatherly), Ziva (Cote de Pablo), Ducky (David McCallum), McGee, Abby (Pauley Perrette), Bishop (Emily Wickersham) and the current NCIS team.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Well, you’re emotional, but you can’t be that way for the episode,’” Carroll continued. “If this had happened in my third season as Director Vance, it would’ve been a much different feeling. But after 18, after my character’s lived two lifetimes basically in TV world, and I said, ‘To play a character for 18 seasons on one of the most-watched TV shows in the world is the equivalent to having lived to be 105.’ In my world, it’s like if you go to a memorial service for somebody who lived to be 105, your thought is, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry he’s gone, but I mean, geez, he lived to be 105.’ That’s kind of how I feel about my character.”
Binder also weighed in on the shocking shake-up.
“There have always been real stakes,” he told the outlet. “It is never easy to say goodbye to any of our characters, but we wanted to honor Rocky and his legacy on the show as best as we could — in this case, giving his life so his agency could live.”
Looking ahead, Binder promised that the team “will be grieving,” saying, “But we felt it important that, at the end of the episode, the team is just as focused on Vance’s sacrifice as they are on their loss. Vance died to protect them all. And they are going to honor that by putting one foot in front of the other, and just continuing on their mission to protect and safeguard their country.”
NCIS airs on CBS Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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