Cote de Pablo

Cote de Pablo: (being asked if she always wanted to be an actress) I actually never thought I'd be an actress. I always thought I was gonna be a singer because it was always what I did. I was a very quiet, shy kid and I was always making observations and I was always sort of hiding behind my grandmother's skirt. I was watching things from afar. It wasn't until I came to this country that I had to sort of crack the shell and develop a voice so that people didn't walk all over me. And so I started expressing myself in many different ways and that's how I landed on a stage in theater class in middle-school and that's the beginning.

Cote de Pablo: (about keeping a character "fresh" and "three-dimensional") To maintain the fun and the lightness of it, all you have to dig deep into what makes these characters tick. What makes them sad? What makes them laugh? What turns them on?

Cote de Pablo: (about moving to LA after accepting her role on NCIS) I auditioned and within two weeks I was on a plane and moving to Los Angeles. I had one little bag and moved into a one-bedroom apartment and my life became NCIS.

Cote de Pablo: (about living in America as a Chilean and her appreciation towards Ziva David's feelings about being an outsider) I feel like I'm Chilean and I'm American. I don't feel I'm just one thing. I live in no mans land in many ways because I'm not Chilean and I'm not American… I relate to her more because I am a foreigner more than I would playing just an American person. It was very easy for me to identify with somebody who's a foreigner, who doesn't understand everything.

Cote de Pablo: (about speaking Hebrew in NCIS) The few phrases I do use in the show, I have a coach that I study with.

Cote de Pablo: (about doing stunts in NCIS) Coming from the theater I love the adrenalin rush from working on NCIS. You get home and you're exhausted, but you feel like you've really worked. It's such a masochistic thing. In one episode we were shooting boxed in a container from 7 in the morning to 12 at night. There's gunfire in the container. We had to pretend the truck was moving so we had to keep ourselves moving the whole time. I remember my knees were all bruised up because I had to fall so many times. That was taxing on the body.

Cote de Pablo: (about her free time) Most of the time I rest, try to do a movie or just watch them at home. I'm into watching old movies I haven't seen like Roman Polanski's Macbeth. Occasionally I go out with friends, but there's no time to really go clubbing like I used to... I have to take care of myself because if you get sick you still have to work. I'm not much a party animal anyway. I lay low. I like to be grounded by nature, go hiking... go to an isolated island that's not glamorous and touristy at all.

Cote de Pablo: (On speaking Hebrew for her role as Ziva David in "NCIS") Oh, man, it took four days of nothing else in my apartment to learn this. I was so scared, because I'm very good with languages, but Hebrew sounded like nothing I had ever heard.

Cote de Pablo: I want to get more into martial arts, and I'm taking the Israeli answer to Chinese Kung Fu. There's no fighting there. It's just a matter of breaking down the enemy in three seconds. It's really violent, but I'm doing it more for getting into shape and just to be stronger. I've always been fit, but I want to feel strength coming from the center of my body, which has nothing to do with being mean or anything. It just has to do with doing the right core work.

Cote de Pablo: (On her "NCIS" schedule) Our schedules are brutal. We shoot every day with very little time off and we only have an hour for lunch. And we have so much dialogue every day we have to memorize on the spot.

Cote de Pablo: You always draw from yourselves even if you're playing the most crazy type of person. What you really want is to be three-dimensional.

Cote de Pablo: It is an incredible show. I am playing a wonderful character. I couldn't be more thrilled. It is a huge challenge for me as an actress. I am so happy to be working with these incredible actors, who are just incredible people also.