NCIS' Rocky Carroll on Why the Franchise's 'Blue Collar Approach' Is the Secret to Its Success (Exclusive)
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Carroll also tells PEOPLE how the cast of 'NCIS' reacted when learning they had just filmed their 1000th episode
Robert Voets/CBS via Getty
Rocky Carroll on 'NCIS'Rocky Carroll says filming NCIS' 1000th episode was just like any other day at work.
After 17 seasons and 357 episodes on the crime-fighting procedural, the actor, 60, exclusively tells PEOPLE that the cast has accomplished "so many milestones" that hitting 1000 episodes across all five NCIS series didn't initially register as a huge achievement.
"This is not to sound arrogant at all," he explains. "I've been, fortunately, a part of so many milestones with regard to the show. I remember when the 100th episode was celebrated. And then we had 200, [where] Michael Weatherly jokingly said, 'Here's [to] the 400', and everybody laughed. And then we celebrated a 400th episode."
Art Streiber/CBS via Getty
Rocky Carroll on 'NCIS'When it came time to film, Carroll admits he didn't realize he had finished the 1000th episode until he finished shooting it, and then it was off to the next.
"[There] wasn't that, 'Let's call everybody into the room and remind them that this is a seminal episode,'" he recalls. "That's really not how we operate. Our sound stages are 30 miles north of Hollywood. We're not on a fancy studio lot. We're just outside of Magic Mountain [a theme park in Valencia, California]. We work in our own little space."
Carroll says that CBS threw a special luncheon to celebrate the achievement and the cast quickly returned to work afterward.
Related: The Cast of NCIS: Where Are They Now?
"It was like, 'Okay, we got an episode to finish.' That's always been our blue collar approach to doing the episodes," he continues. "We know how rare the air that we're in right now, we know how rare it is. When we have guest stars, and people come from the outside, and they talk to us, and they go, 'Man, you guys have something really special here.'"
Carroll adds, "But we don't spend a lot of time relishing it or celebrating in the end zone because we got a work day to finish. I think that's part of the reason why this show has been on for so long is because people come to work, and they're like, 'Hey, let's make another episode,' with the same energy that they had 15, 20 seasons ago."
Elsewhere in his conversation with PEOPLE, the actor shared why he believes the franchise has been able to endure for so long and the measures producers and writers have taken to ensure its longevity.
"The producers and the writers allowed this show and allowed the characters to not be stuck in a certain year or a certain timeframe or at a certain age," he explains. "We evolved over these 20-something years. All the characters have gone through their own share of peaks and valleys, death, loss, separations, all these different things."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Despite the changes NCIS and its cast have endured, Carroll notes that the procedural's characters are "still doing the same job" and working for the same agency. Even though some things have changed and some haven't, at the core of NCIS is its purpose.
Carroll says former NCIS veteran, Mark Harmon, would always say, "The star of this show has to be the agency."
NCIS airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
