FINDING HER VOICE For de Pablo, her beloved acting was also a mode of preservation. “I got into it for kind of funny reasons,” she admits. “I went to the States and somewhere along the line I had to learn to take care of myself, and the language was also a big thing for me. It became a way of expressing myself at a time that was confusing. It was a way of pushing out of myself and becoming more outspoken.”
So after graduating from Carnegie Mellon, the newly outspoken de Pablo decided to move to a place where she’d fit right in—New York. Early on, while discussing her move north with a friend, de Pablo was told, “put your parachute on and fall … it’s amazing and scary.” Her friend was right. De Pablo moved to a Brooklyn apartment and as many acting hopefuls do, started waiting tables to make a few bucks between auditions. She spent her days waitressing at Indian and Italian restaurants. She had free lunches, worked with friends she loved and learned that waitressing is one of the hardest jobs there is.
“Even now when I sit down in a restaurant, I know what a waitress goes through,” she says. “I used to always think, ‘I would be the best waitress I could be.’”
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From the time I was 15, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went for it and I didn’t stop.
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In the United States you can create who you are. You make your own expectations. She expected to become an actress. And she did.
Within a year, de Pablo began appearing in New York City Public Theater productions and national
commercials, and then made a move to television shows. She landed small parts on “All My Children” and the ABC series, “The Education of Max Bickford,” acting alongside Richard Dreyfuss, and in 2004 starred in the short-lived FOX series, “The Jury.” And then in 2005, she nailed what would become the most important audition of her career for “NCIS,” which focuses on a team of special agents in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that solves spellbinding cases involving Navy and Marine personnel. De Pablo quickly became surrounded by talented actors including Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly
and Rocky Carroll. She got the role playing feisty field agent Ziva David, a former Israeli Mossad officer who is also a skilled fighter. She never imagined she’d still be a part of the gifted cast eight years later. Often during the show, de Pablo opted to do her own stunts. She says she liked the challenge of learning how to fight and enjoyed the adrenaline rush. But doing your own stunts means that sometimes, you just might get hurt. And de Pablo did. She bruised and battered many parts of her body, but it was when she hurt her neck that she decided it was time to call it quits and let someone else fight her scenes for her.
Photo by Matt Hoyle/CBS
FROM LEFT: “NCIS” cast members Pauley Perrette, Rocky Carroll, Sean Murray, Mark Harmon, David McCallum, Michael Weatherly, de Pablo and Brian Dietzen
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