{"id":850,"date":"2024-08-13T20:52:33","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T20:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/?p=850"},"modified":"2024-08-13T20:52:33","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T20:52:33","slug":"ncis-stars-who-almost-took-different-career-paths-from-mark-harmon-to-david-mccallum-and-emily-wickersham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/?p=850","title":{"rendered":"NCIS stars who almost took different career paths: From Mark Harmon to David McCallum and Emily Wickersham"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCIS has gifted fans with some of TV\u2019s most memorable characters. But, if fate hadn\u2019t intervened, some of our favourite actors might not have entered the industry at all.<\/p>\n

Mark Harmon had a completely different job before a chance meeting changed everything, and the late David McCallum had assumed he\u2019d simply follow in his father\u2019s footsteps. Here, we reveal which cast members had alternative career paths in mind\u2026
\n\"\"
\nPicture Perfect\/Shutterstock
\nMark Harmon
\nIt\u2019s impossible to imagine the NCIS universe without Mark Harmon \u2013 aka Leroy Jethro Gibbs \u2013 but acting wasn\u2019t always on the cards for the A-lister. During an interview with Men\u2019s Journal, the 72-year-old explained that he\u2019d started out as a carpenter.<\/p>\n

Asked what he\u2019d be doing if he wasn\u2019t in the world of TV and film, he told the publication: \u201cI\u2019d be a carpenter. I tried to do that, but I just couldn\u2019t get hired. I enjoyed getting up and doing that in the morning; I enjoyed the drive to work. For me, it was about materials and doing right. If you did it right, [the project] outlasted you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still enjoy [carpentry], but I think that\u2019s probably what I would have been trying to do had I not been [acting],\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Mark also went on to reveal that he\u2019d then bagged a job as a shoe salesman but after overhearing a stranger\u2019s conversation, he realized that acting was his true passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was doing that shoe salesman job. I was coming back from Boston and I was sitting next to a 33-year-old who was talking about trying to make pension at 65,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was drinking his second martini by the time we were wheels up. He was miserable in his job and he was trying to maintain the job for another [32] years. I went home, got in my car, drove out to the place where I worked, and gave my notice.\u201d
\n\"\"
\nGuignebourg Denis\/ABACA\/Shutterstock
\nDavid McCallum
\nHaving hailed from a musical family, David McCallum thought he\u2019d dread a similar path. His father, David Sr, was a famed violinist renowned as the Scottish leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, while his mother, Dorothy, had been a talented cellist.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt home, music was omnipresent, and my parents both assumed at first that I would follow them into the family business,\u201d David told Mail Online in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father polled friends about which instrument I should study, with a view to future employment opportunities, and settled on the oboe. There was I, still a young boy, and he was choosing my profession; but I was happy to comply. I was in the school orchestra and gave the odd recital. But I was also involved in amateur dramatics. I still play the oboe, but music never grabbed me the way that acting did.\u201d<\/p>\n

After appearing in a production of Shakespeare\u2019s King John, David eventually decided that acting was the way to go, and the rest is history!
\n\"\"
\nGuignebourg Denis\/ABACA\/Shutterstock
\nDavid McCallum
\nHaving hailed from a musical family, David McCallum thought he\u2019d dread a similar path. His father, David Sr, was a famed violinist renowned as the Scottish leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, while his mother, Dorothy, had been a talented cellist.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt home, music was omnipresent, and my parents both assumed at first that I would follow them into the family business,\u201d David told Mail Online in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father polled friends about which instrument I should study, with a view to future employment opportunities, and settled on the oboe. There was I, still a young boy, and he was choosing my profession; but I was happy to comply. I was in the school orchestra and gave the odd recital. But I was also involved in amateur dramatics. I still play the oboe, but music never grabbed me the way that acting did.\u201d<\/p>\n

After appearing in a production of Shakespeare\u2019s King John, David eventually decided that acting was the way to go, and the rest is history!
\n\"\"
\nCBS Photo Archive,Getty Images
\nEmily Wickersham
\nEmily Wickersham had always been creative, but when she headed to university, her focus was on painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter high school, I majored in painting for two years at Muhlenberg College\u2014my mother is a painter, my father does art, too, and my brother is a photographer, so there are lots of artists in my family\u2014but it didn\u2019t feel quite right, so I dropped out and moved to New York City,\u201d she previously shared with CBS.<\/p>\n

After making the move to the Big Apple, Emily managed to bag roles in episodes of The Sopranos, Gossip Girl and The Bridge before joining the cast of NCIS as Ellie Bishop.
\n\"\"
\nCBS Photo Archive,Getty Images
\nEmily Wickersham
\nEmily Wickersham had always been creative, but when she headed to university, her focus was on painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter high school, I majored in painting for two years at Muhlenberg College\u2014my mother is a painter, my father does art, too, and my brother is a photographer, so there are lots of artists in my family\u2014but it didn\u2019t feel quite right, so I dropped out and moved to New York City,\u201d she previously shared with CBS.<\/p>\n

After making the move to the Big Apple, Emily managed to bag roles in episodes of The Sopranos, Gossip Girl and The Bridge before joining the cast of NCIS as Ellie Bishop.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMaria Bello
\nMaria Bello was going to be a lawyer. Sitting down with WebMD Magazine, the A-lister was quizzed about her early career plans, which saw her majoring in peace and justice education at Villanova University.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics and diplomacy are not in my repertoire,\u201d she reflected. \u201cStill, my education has served me well, especially in international women\u2019s rights as I meet remarkable women from so many places who share their hopes, lives, and dreams with me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NCIS has gifted fans with some of TV\u2019s most memorable characters. But, if fate hadn\u2019t intervened, some of our favourite actors might not have entered the industry at all. Mark Harmon had a completely different job before a chance meeting changed everything, and the late David McCallum had assumed he\u2019d simply follow in his father\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}