The show must go on, with or without a cast member that has cemented themselves firmly in the show’s canon. Much the same can be said for Emily Wickersham after she departed the CBS series, NCIS, after eight seasons. Wickersham played Ellie Bishop, filling the void on the team left by Cote de Pablo‘s Ziva David. She left the show in the Season 18 finale “Rule 91” when her character left for an undercover mission. The mission in question would require her to ruin her reputation as an NCIS agent. Now three years after she left the show, Wickersham is opening up about her time on the long running crime drama.
She appeared on Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast, hosted by de Pablo and Michael Weatherly, who played Ziva’s love interest and teammate, Anthony DiNozzo. She says that shortly after leaving the show, her life dramatically changed and that played into how she processed her departure, and not returning to the NCIS set like she’d done for the past almost decade. “I found out I was pregnant a month later,” Wickersham explains. “So it was a combo of decompressing and trying to really relax and figure out how things were going to be without work.”
Because as you guys know, it’s all consuming.
Your life is all NCIS when you’re on that show. It’s all day, every day
, and you’re not really left with much time to do many things outside of that. So that was a real adjustment for me.
Wickersham Doesn’t Regret How and When She Left NCIS
“It was a weird moment in time. It was wonderful and weird,” Wickersham says of her time after leaving the show. “As you both know, it’s strange to leave something that has been ingrained in you for so many years.” Despite all the life changes, including moving to New York to be near her boyfriend as well as the news of her pregnancy, Wickersham doesn’t seem to have any regrets leaving. “I was ready to leave the show,” she says on the podcast.
Katrina Law (Arrow) filled the space on the team left by Wickersham’s character. Law plays Jessica Knight, who may have very well had the beginnings of departure at the end of Season 21, being offered a job that may be too good to resist. Wickersham says of her own departure, “[i]t was time and I was ready to move on to something else… So it was good.” Wickersham hasn’t acted since NCIS, but maybe with her schedule clear and these old feelings brought up, it could open the door for a return of Ellie Bishop.
You can catch up on all 21 seasons of NCIS on Paramount+ ahead of the Season 22 premiere October 14 on CBS.
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