So, when the team finally cornered the suspect at a hotel, imagine Torres’ shock and dismay when it turned out to be the father (Steven Bauer as Miguel Torres) he thought–or hoped–was dead. “When his father showed up, it was a challenge of everything that he had hated about the man,” Valderrama told Parade.com in this exclusive interview. “It came at a crossroads as he learned more about what really had happened back then, and threw him for him an even bigger loop to understand: Where am I now? Who am I now?” Of course, Miguel once again disappointed Torres. He learned that his father originally fled Panama to save his family’s lives when Noreiga’s men discovered he had been working to overthrow him, and he has been working as a freelance operative for the CIA ever since. When the case is over and they are on their way to reconciliation, Miguel disappeared again; Torres showed up at Miguel’s hotel room for their dinner date only to find it being cleaned by the maid. “I have no clue,” Valderrama responded when asked why he thought Miguel vanished again. “But I think Torres said in this moment that he’s decided he doesn’t care to know. He’s made a decision. He said, ‘You led me to not expect this at a time where I was expecting you to walk away. And then you taught me that you weren’t, and then I show up and then you do.’” So, Torres heads to the one man he knows he can count on. He shows up unannounced at Gibbs’s (Mark Harmon) house as his boss is eating a steak dinner. “When he got into the car, he didn’t really know where he was going,” Valderrama said. “He got in the car, started driving, and subliminally found himself in front of Gibbs’ home. I think when he walked in, he wasn’t ready to be vulnerable or emotionally available. He wasn’t ready to talk about anything. And he knew that going to see Gibbs, someone who shares a lot of the same spirit, being emotionally unavailable and not wanting to talk about things, and all that, I think that he felt that that’s the safest place he could go." He added, “He just needed to be with Gibbs. Gibbs reminds him of the father he never had.” Following is more of what Valderrama had to say about the revelation that Torres’ father is still alive and what his second disappearance will mean for the character going forward, plus what it’s been like working without Harmon.
Torres’ father, Miguel, walked out on him when he was 5. How much did that shape who he became?
I think that he learned to not trust. I think that losing trust made him go after the bad guys. If you’re going to abandon my mother and me, I think that was a major beacon for Torres to go after tyranny and to go after justice. This whole time, Torres has learned to be this guy based on what he plainly saw as abandonment. And now knowing that it was actually a sacrifice his father made, it’s a mental struggle. You thought you had it figured it out. You’re an adult, you live your life doing the right thing, you’re of service, and then all this information comes in and all of a sudden, the puzzle is back to square one, and you’ve got to now start piecing it together. What does that mean to me? Torres hated him this whole time, and that’s what kind of completed him. Now, he feels incomplete not knowing how to even make closure. And I think that that’s really fascinating to see Torres work through that. A character that is very confident and emotionally unavailable, and all of a sudden, having him be forced to deal with his past and having that past in front of him. You’re staring right at him. It was very unique for this character.
There’s a line that Torres has in the episode that says, “going undercover for so many years, something happens.” So, I thought maybe that was part of why Miguel left again.
I don’t know. I think that we’re going to have to figure out what that would mean for Torres. It’s going to be played over time, but I think something broke. I think something for Torres fractured and I really believe that Torres is now having a dilemma. Should he continue to trust people now that he’s been taught to trust people through this team, aka his family, and this accidental father figure in Gibbs? He had learned to trust and what does this betrayal mean to him? It seems like a really interesting opportunity for him to be like, “Maybe it’s easier for me to go back to what I know…What I knew before I became an NCIS team member.” Who Torres was before, it made him feel safe: not emotionally attached to anyone, just doing what it takes for the job and not following the rules. I think that that structure, he’s going to boycott a little bit. And I think that his father’s departure again is going to, unfortunately, fracture what he has built in the last couple of years. You’re going to see that play out in him and maybe in a fortunate or unfortunate way. We’ve got to see how we decide to evolve or what area we want to take it toward. That’s something that I feel like is going to definitely play out.
Ellie was there for Torres through all the drama with his dad. There are hints that the relationship is more than being teammates and friends. How would you describe the relationship?
That’s the problem, right? I think that Torres and Bishop don’t know how to describe it. These are two characters that have been burned by life and have given themselves a higher purpose. So the hope for them is to have that badge and follow those rules. They have gone this long without real relationships. I know, especially for Bishop, every time she allowed herself to be emotionally available, it backfired on her in a very traumatic way in her storylines. And that’s before Torres even got there. So then for Torres having to carry on professional relationships in order to submerge himself and embed himself in different undercover jobs also gave him the ability to not really ever have to give and not really ever have to love somebody…or maybe love somebody, but realizing that “Oh, I’m loving this person as someone else, as someone who is not Torres.” All those years of undercover work, I think really fractured the possibilities of being with somebody. And I think that seeing these two characters making sense together and wanting to figure out, ‘what is this?’…I think it’s made it very unique for the fans to watch these two likable human beings seem like they make sense together, but why are they not?
Steven Bauer plays a lot of dark characters. What was it like having him play Miguel?
A fun fact about this is Steven Bauer and I did a pilot together many years ago and he played my father in that pilot. It was a show called Four Stars. Steven played a four-star general opposite Bruce Greenwood, and I played his son. We just loved it. We thought, “Man, it’d be so cool if people see us be father and son.” Then many years later, weeks before the script was even written, there was a conversation about maybe we bring in Torres’ father. I thought, “Wait, that’s a fantastic idea if we can cast someone amazing.” Then when the episode was written and I read it, I started thinking to myself like, “Oh, who?” And then I said, “Hey, what about Steven Bauer?” And everybody’s like, “Man, what about Steven Bauer?” He was like a light bulb moment and they went after him. They gave him the offer and he was available, and he said, “Let’s play.” He called me; we talked a bunch of times on the phone trying to really connect the dots between the subtext for both of our characters. By the time we show up to set, it was there. And so, it was really fun. I had a great time. I love Steven. To me, he’s one of those icons, who always delivers on screen. To play opposite him is nothing short of an honor.
Torres turned to Gibbs at his low point. Is that because he thinks Gibbs can understand what Torres is going through?
Even though Gibbs has his own issues, as we know, Torres showed up with the “I don’t want to talk about it” attitude, and Gibbs responded, “Well, you came to the right place.” That moment, it just goes to say, “Hey, listen. These are two seasoned wolves sitting down and understanding that talking it out is not something in the blueprint for them; but being there for one another is. I think that was the love letter to that relationship and what Gibbs has become to Torres.
There is another line in there, “It’s never too late to start over again,” so maybe there is hope for both Gibbs and Torres.
Maybe there is hope. I think, ultimately, you’ve got to also pay close attention to in between the lines. Because you think about living a certain way for so long, how do you unravel? How do you break the mold and build the new one? These are two characters that have survived a certain way and now they’re being asked by life to survive with a different philosophy. How much are you willing to do the work to find a groove in that new way? I think a lot of that is really what’s being played in these characters and the layers that we’re seeing being introduced. I think that ultimately there is hope and understanding that in the field, we’re watching each other’s backs, we’ve saved each other’s life, and I think this is the closest to trust that Torres will ever get. He doesn’t expect anyone in this team to actually betray him and that’s something that he has to really work hard in not forgetting. I think that’s going to be Torres’ struggle at some point.
What about his sister? Doesn’t he love and trust his sister?
I think they have a relationship. I think that he’s even more passionate about his niece. I think that for Torres, the biggest issue is protecting them. He feels instead of being a family, I think he feels like his role with his sister and his niece is to make sure they’re safe. He takes the role that his father did without being emotionally available to his sister and niece. If they ever need to be protected, he will always be there. But I don’t know if he knows how to be a brother or an uncle. I think that he thinks of his job as the guardian angel, the protector, of the only thing he has left. His sister and his niece are the reasons why he stayed in Washington, because he felt that he needed to protect them from his own past, which is also more out of guilt. He knows that his past almost killed his sister and niece. It certainly killed his brother-in-law. But to know that his past could actually also damage the only thing he has left, it haunts Torres. I think that’s one of the reasons why he stayed in Washington and he joined NCIS, to be close by to protect his sister and niece. I don’t know how he is with them. I think he’s definitely trying to pay them back.
There have been several episodes now with Gibbs suspended, so the team has had to solve cases on their own. How does it feel different?
It doesn’t feel very different. I think that for the characters, obviously, they’re probably puzzled, like, what’s to come? But I think that when you look at the science and the dynamics of the cases, it’s falling in a lot of our strengths and the team has done an incredible job at showing up and really being present for what needs to be done. We’re solving the cases and it’s beautiful and empowering. I think that the big feeling is it’s empowering to be able to go out there and know that Gibbs’ spirit is still guiding us a lot. It’s a testament to how well he’s trained his agents.
Is that Mark’s real-life dog that plays his dog in the show?
Not at all. It’s a wonderful actor. It’s a wonderful canine, who is incredibly kind and beautiful and so sweet, so well behaved, and just has so much fun on-set. Mark, he loves dogs, so, I think, he has so much fun playing with him on-set.
Congratulations on the Season 19 pickup! What was that like when the news was announced on set?
Unfortunately, we weren’t on set. We had an unusually short season. We only did 16 episodes. So, we’d traditionally be on set for that announcement, but we weren’t this year. I will say it was received incredibly well. We’re very happy and very proud because you look at all of our brothers and sisters and colleagues out there. It’s a tough time for a lot of our industry. When we returned to production for Season 18, only 30 percent of whatever was shooting traditionally a year was actually on set. So it was a very iconic moment for us to try to return to work with the million protocols that made it incredibly challenging to do what we do creatively. It was also really a scary time for a lot of that, so I think that to be able to achieve that and go through Season 18 and shoot 16 awesome episodes that the fans really liked and showed up for, a season that still saw us being No. 1 every week, it’s pretty unbelievable. And so, to be able to also finish the season and have a real season finale–the season finale that we couldn’t have in Season 17, it’s also very exciting. So, Season 19 is a blessing. There’s a vacation for two months now to rejuvenate. It’s heavy lifting when you’re doing a procedural drama, so we’re excited to get back in the saddle as soon as we get our start date. NCIS airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Next, find out who Mark Harmon’s wife is playing on NCIS.
