Eric Christian Olsen
Just wanted to take a moment to apologize to everybody. I have a wedding while you’re watching this but I tried to get out of it and evidently you can’t really get out of weddings. So I’m up in Santa Barbara while you guys are here. But I will be there next year !! And I will clear out the schedule so that happens. Thank you so much for the support of me and the show and without you guys we were nowhere and we know that so thanks so much for watching the show and the ongoing support – it means the world to us !! Cause without you – I’d be homeless.

Do you feel comfortable doing the dramatic scenes when your background has been mostly comedic? — Cheryl
Cheryl, that’s great question. I obviously love doing comedic scenes but my start in Hollywood was actually all dramatic scenes. The first job I ever got was on ER playing a burn victim who is dying, while on the phone with his parents. And the second job was to play a sociopathic killer who is 17 and killed some girl. I love the ability to do both and I think that this season was such a blessing because Shane and Scott and everybody gave Deeks such a great storyline to come back to or try to bounce back from. And I love those scenes. They are my favorite so far. My scene with LL Cool J in the hospital, my scene with Dani at the end. And then maybe my favorite scene ever is in episode two with Dani coming to Deeks’ house. So, yeah, I couldn’t be happier doing both.

LL Cool J
Do your co-stars have different approaches to acting? How has your acting changed from working with them? — Karen
Hi Karen. Your questions was do my co-stars have different approaches to acting and the answer is – absolutely. Deeks played by Eric Christian Olsen loves to improv. Linda Hunt, who portraits Hetty, she really loves to go deep into the material and really immerses herself into the deepest parts of the material. Chris has a really interesting and creative process of how he goes about blocking things and where he wants to stand. He’s really conscious of the camera. Daniela, who plays Kensi Blye, has a very fluid way of approaching the craft because she acted for many many years in Portugal before she came to the states. I think that everybody from Barrett to Renée, Barrett with his theatre background and Renée with her musical/theatre background, they bring a certain rhythm and energy to the show. So I think everybody has their own way of approaching the material and I think it makes us all better and I think little habits and little pieces of all of them rubbed off on me and made me better – from the beginning of the show until now. Much love !!

Would you ever like Sam to go undercover as a rapper or do you prefer to keep those components of your life separate? — Gayle
I think it’s best that we keep them separate, keep those parts of my life separate. Because I don’t know how we could explain how this Navy Seal all of a sudden learned how to rap or suddenly developed his talent to do music. But… you never know, things can change and I have no problem poking fun at my other career or doing something that’s out of the box when it comes to Sam Hanna so it’s all about the story ultimately. If it made sense in the story – maybe… but for now I think it’s cool to keep them separate. Much love !!

Chris O’Donnell
Your banter with LL seems so effortless. At what point did you realize that you two would work well together? — AJ
AJ, I realized that LL and I would work well together one of the first scenes we ever worked together. We never had done any auditioning or rehearsing together and I think one of our first scenes was in a hotel bathroom on the original NCIS show. I talked to Shane Brennan afterwards and everyone kind of knew from that point on that we had pretty good connection.

How did directing your co-stars give you a different perspective on their acting? — Karen
Karen, I don’t know that directing gave me that much of a different perspective on my co-stars acting. We sit around and watch each other quite a bit and I always felt I had a pretty good idea of each actors comfort levels and the different styles and ways that people like to work. The difference is when you’re directing you can make suggestions more freely than if you’re just a co-star – so I enjoyed that.

Is the mental aspect of some of the shows difficult to handle, such as the more gruesome deaths and frightening plots? — Sheila
Sheila, the mental aspect of the show that I think is tough is not necessarily some of the gruesome scenes or the plot lines for me it’s more personal – to imagine my own character Callen and the personal struggle he goes through. I come from a big family, I had a very rich childhood. Trying to put myself in his shoes and imagine what it was like to live in so many different foster homes and really not know much about your family history. That seems more of a nightmare to me than any of our plots.

Miguel Ferrer
You tweeted: “Just wishing I could go back and re-shot the Granger intro ep. knowing the show, and trusting this incredible cast the way I do now.” Can you elaborate on that? — sindee
Hi, sindee, in regards to my tweet about wanting to go back and reshoot the episode knowing the people the way I do now. It’s just I had no idea how great and giving and wonderful and gifted these people were going to be. I really didn’t even know the show. So really just as I said, knowing what I know now I wish I could go back and do it again. Although… some people liked the way I did it the first time so… it’s probably fine. Never mind.

Is Granger misunderstood? What drives him? — Karen
Hi Karen. Is Granger misunderstood. Yeah, I think so. I think he’s driven by a sense of duty and loyalty, purpose and mission. Mission first. Often at the expense of personal relationships – that’s why he’s single, that’s why he probably doesn’t have children and that’s why there is a sadness about him. I think he’s kind of a duty first guy and everything else second.

If you could be a writer for a day, how would you expand or develop your character more? — Lisa
Hi Lisa, you asked me how I would expand and change Director Granger. You know, I think, Shane and the ladies and gentlemen in the Writer’s Room are doing that. This year you going to find out more about Granger’s backstory. He’s a lot more operational this year. You’re going to see Granger running around with a gun, you’re going to see him in foreign countries, you’re going to see him out of the office. And hopefully more seize to him and find out where he came from. You wanna find out? I wanna find out, too. We find out together…

Renée Felice Smith
What do you think is Nell’s biggest fear? — Mel
Hi, Mel. I think in the beginning Nell’s biggest fear was being wrong about things because she really needed to prove herself. But I think now probably her biggest fear would be getting lost in her job, in her career a bit. We saw her struggle with being away from her family during the holidays. So I would think that for someone of her age it’s got to be difficult to have a social life and maybe date people and juggle such an intense government job. So I would say – getting lost a bit in her career and not building a full life.

What kind of music would Nell Jones listen to? — Keviana
What kind of music would Nell Jones listen to? Hi, Keviana. I have never thought about this question. But I would tell you this I think it would involve a lot of ukulele… now I’m just telling what type of music Renée likes to listen to. It could be maybe Motown field, maybe a little Jackson Five. I think Nell doesn’t discriminate I think she’s all over the board when it comes to music. She embraces it all. She’s a lively girl. And we love her for that.

If you could take Hugo for a walk anywhere in the world, where would it be? — Diane
Aww, Diane, I love this question!! If I could Hugo on a walk anywhere in the world where would it be? I think it would have to be – in my home town, back home in Brooklyn. That’s where he was a puppy. That’s where he grew up and that’s where he learned to be my son.

Barrett Foa
If you had the ability to do anything with Eric for an episode, what would you have him do? — Erin
Hi, Erin, it’s Barrett Foa here. What would I do with Eric if I could have him do anything ? I think it would be making sweet sweet love to Nell Jones on top of the OPS center table.

Your character on NCIS LA is admittedly fearful of venturing out of Ops during assignments. Do you, as an actor, experience any of the same anxiety when called on to film off the set? — Mary
Hi, Mary. Let’s see. About my anxiety about going on to set. Yes, I think the first couple of seasons there was a little bit of anxiety just because everyday is different. And it was totally new medium for me I never really worked in television that much before. I worked in theatre a lot so yeah I can act but acting on camera is different than acting in theatre. You know all your lines are going into performance on stage but with this you sometimes get the lines right before it or the day of or the day before and you kind of got to role with it. So there’s a little anxiety just for that but now I’m getting a little bit more confident.

If Eric Beale was handed a gun and needed to shoot someone to defend himself, would he? How would he feel afterwards? — Keviana
Keviana, Eric Beale would take the gun. He’d be a little bit scared about taking the gun and there might be some quivery shaky-shakes with that because he is not trained to shoot a gun but I think if it came to saving an important person – part of the team perhaps or a good guy – I think Eric would be up to it. And I think one day… soon… I’m willing this… you and me, Keviana we’re going to will for a gun to be in Eric Beale’s hand to see what happens. We’ll see !! We can only see…

Daniela Ruah
What aspect of Kensi’s past and history do you wish you knew more about? — Mel
Hi Mel. To answer your questions I think that would probably be about Jack. I would love to find out more about Jack the fiancé who ran out on me on Christmas Eve and who suffered of PTSD. And I say Jack because that is the only seed thus far that our producers have planted that has not yet been resolved. I’m sure there will be other mysterious about Kensi’s past that they’ll probably bring up eventually but I don’t know about those yet so I guess all I can say is Jack for now. Very curious to know who Jack is and what happened there and to resolve that story.

Is there any undercover role Kensi hasn’t done yet that you would like to play? — Paul
Well, hello Paul. I think that I would love to do anything that wasn’t sort of more on the sexy side of things. They tend to put me undercover in very tight dresses and bikinis and all this kind of stuff so I think I’d love to steal Deeks’ homeless man for an episode or two and kind of really get down to the nitty gritty… teeth rotting… just make myself as ugly and frumpy as possible. That would be really fun to do.

Finish the sentence: “In Season Ten Kensi will finally…” — sindee
In season ten Kensi will finally realize that the man for her is… Sam. I think… Sam and Kensi. Putting it out there !! {laughs}

 
Thanks again to the cast of NCIS Los Angeles for answering those questions that were submitted by the fans attending the NCISLAFamilia Meet Up in October 2013. The answers were originally given on video. This is a transcript of the video.

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