NCIS star Michael Weatherly once confided that he was sick of the roles he was offered before he was cast as Tony DiNozzo. But the long-running procedural helped him discover a passion for acting that he didn’t have before despite his years in the business.

Michael Weatherly once revealed what changed about his acting after he was cast in ‘NCIS’

Weatherly already had quite the screen resume before he was recruited for Mark Harmon’s NCIS team. One of the projects he featured in prior to the hit show was Dark Angel, where he played hacker Logan Cale. Although he felt the series failed due to creative decisions, it wasn’t the only notable project he was in. Weatherly also had bit roles in Charmed and Ally McBeal as well. Yet, none of those television shows offered Weatherly what he was really looking for in a role.

“I started out doing soaps and by the time I got to Dark Angel and some other jobs, I was kind of in a box, having played this Randy Blandy-type character for years,” Weatherly once said according to Live Journal. “Kind of like a department store mannequin that talks. When I first became excited about acting, Tom Hanks and Cary Grant really appealed to me, but when I started acting, none of those kinds of roles were available. That style of role wasn’t around. So I was always getting projects, whether it was Charmed or Dark Ange or Ally McBeal, that were about a central, powerful woman and I would be playing these guys who were always doing the complaining.”

“NCIS helped me get away from that through DiNozzo, who is partly a creation of my own somewhat bizarre sense of humor, but much more a creation of the NCIS writers,” he added.

NCIS was the first show Weatherly felt he became truly famous for. Additionally, it made him love acting in a way he never had before.

“NCIS is the first acting job I’ve had that’s made me really love acting. I can’t wait to hear the word ‘action’ and I die a little every time I hear the word ‘cut.’ It used to be the opposite. It used to be that I would get so nervous before the word ‘action.’ Now, it’s a countdown. I can’t wait,” he said.

Michael Weatherly was told he wasn’t a very good actor when he started out

Weatherly admitted that he jumped into the acting industry a bit prematurely. In an interview with Backstage, he revealed that he moved to New York on a whim to pursue his dream. It was a choice that’d eventually end up with Weatherly having a high net worth and a long-lasting career. But not everyone thought he was making a wise decision.

“The first night I got in there my friend said, ‘What are you doing? You want to be an actor? That’s insane. You’re not an actor. You’ve never done anything! What was your major? Wasn’t it, like, political science?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I know, but I kinda got into this whole thing,’ and I gave him my talk and he was not convinced,” he said.

It was noted that Weatherly found an audition to attend on an old copy of Backstage back in the 90s. When he arrived to screen for the role, he quickly discovered that he wasn’t exactly a match for the part.

“I waited in line for a very long time—over an hour, shuffling forward and forward and forward—and finally got a number. Went up, stood in the middle of the stage, and everybody burst out laughing. I was the first white person they’d seen the whole morning because it was casting background for New Jack City,” he said.

He wasn’t hired for the project. But the audition wasn’t a complete waste, as Weatherly connected with many industry professionals who’d help further advance his career. However, not all the people he auditioned for were impressed with his acting. One even asserted that Weatherly might get by more on his looks than on his skill.

“Within six weeks I was testing for Betty Rae for Guiding Light,” he remembered. “It was like, ‘You’re not very good but you have nice cheekbones and good hair. I think this could work.’”