Brian Dietzen may now be one of the most experienced stars on NCIS, but when he first joined the hit crime drama, he admits he felt “very intimidated.”
Speaking on the debut episode of the podcast NCIS: Partners & Probies, which he hosts alongside co-star Diona Reasonover, the 48-year-old actor opened up about the anxiety he faced in his early days on the show. Dietzen first appeared as Dr. Jimmy Palmer in season one more than 20 years ago.
“I had a lot of anxiety about going to work on NCIS,” he shared. “It showed up as cold sweats and sometimes stumbling over my words. I don’t think I was always my full self in front of the camera back then.”
One moment that still stands out happened during an early season when Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard — played by David McCallum — was kidnapped in an episode. Dietzen’s character had to explain complicated X-rays to Leroy Jethro Gibbs, portrayed by Mark Harmon, as well as Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) and Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly).
According to Dietzen, then-showrunner Donald P. Bellisario suddenly handed him a revised script filled with two full pages of dense medical jargon — and told him the scene would be filmed in just 15 minutes.
“I was sitting on my trailer steps thinking, ‘Oh gosh, I’m about to have a panic attack,’” he recalled. At that moment, Harmon and Weatherly both checked in to see if he needed help.
Harmon later explained why the last-minute change had happened.
“He said, ‘You know why he’s doing this? He’s calling your number. He wants to see what you’ve got,’” Dietzen remembered.
Luckily, his co-stars stepped in to support him. Just before filming, Perrette quietly taped his lines to the bottom of the camera’s matte box so he could see them while performing.
“The first take, I didn’t miss a word,” Dietzen said with a laugh. “I was literally reading the lines while pointing at the X-rays. It worked perfectly. And before anyone noticed, Pauley pulled the paper down and put it back in her pocket.”
The director praised his performance afterward, and the moment became a turning point for Dietzen. It helped him realize that the cast had his back.
“That’s when my anxiety started to ease,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘These people are here for me. This is a family.’ It really changed everything.”
Today, Dietzen remains one of the few original cast members still appearing on NCIS as the show continues into its later seasons.