As the first season of NCIS: ORIGINS begins production, Kyle Schmid explained how it has felt to step into the role of Mike Franks, Leroy Gibbs’ mentor, and explore NCIS in the ’90s.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to be a part of something that’s been grandfathered into the industry as a standard for procedural television. [NCIS] has been running for what’s going to be seasons,” Schmid told TV Insider. “Mark Harmon did it and put his stamp on it and kind of led the way for everybody. It has been a really neat experience because he has lent his expertise and advice and help to us through emails and calls. Just time spent piquing his brain has been really important.”
NCIS: ORIGINS follows the budding NCIS unit at Camp Pendleton which is being headed by Franks who was allowed to hand-pick his team of promising young agents.
“[Franks] had been part of NCIS for a while in 2001 [on the original show], when you met him, he [was] a little older, a little more jaded,” Schmid explained. “He has seen a lot that I think he wishes he could have had more control over. So, we’re seeing him at a point in his life where he has paved his own way and earned the respect of the agency.”
“Now he has the opportunity to build a team that he sees as some of the most promising agents in NCIS. We get to meet those people and see those people grow,” he continued. “He is still at a point where he gets to mentor Gibbs. I think we’ll get to see why Gibbs was who the world fell in love with in the original NCIS and how he came to be that way. And Mike Franks is a big part of that.”
Along with exploring the backstory behind NCIS, Schmid is excited about the nostalgia that comes from shooting a show set in the ’90s.
“The music is what excites me. I was born in the early 1980s, so I like Pearl Jam and Nirvana,” he said. “Those are still on my daily playlist. I failed to mature with the music and am stuck in the 1990s. We have incredible music.”
“I think it’s fun to play with the dynamics of the male-female relationship in the workplace,” Schmid added. “We get to live in a world where things are a little backward compared to today…We get to see how Mike Franks gets to play a 40-year-old in an industry that we, in present-day America, have forgotten and have tried to change. I think that will be really interesting for the show.”
Harmon, who is executive producing ORIGINS, is also excited about the setting.
“It’s all going to be a time that we haven’t traveled before. It’s 1990, so it’s something we’re all looking forward to,” he told ET. “It will be different.”
Schmid is joined on NCIS: ORIGINS by Austin Stowell as young Gibbs, Mariel Molino as Special Agent Lala Dominguez and Robert Taylor as Gibbs’ father. The show is set to air this fall on CBS.
Movieguide® previously reported:
NCIS: ORIGINS has announced a new cast member.
Kyle Schmid will play the role of Mike Franks in the new sequel drama series.
He’s been acting for a long time and is known “for playing Henry Fitzroy in the Lifetime series BLOODTIES, he went onto take on the role of Henry Durham, in the Syfy Channel series BEING HUMAN and the role of Robert Morehouse in the BBC America series COPPER. Kyle focused on film for a number of years following building leading characters until he landed the role of Alex Caulder in History’s well respected, SIX.”
Franks, an NCIS favorite, is “a proud Texan who all but showers in his cowboy boots and sports a perfectly coiffed mustache that’s as thick as his skin. As NCIS fans know all too well, Franks is a born leader with an unwavering moral compass who’s determined to find justice by any means necessary,” Deadline reported.