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Mark Harmon, best known for his iconic role as Gibbs on NCIS, once admitted there was one cop role he’d played that outshone the legendary Gibbs in some major ways. Believe it or not, it wasn’t the tough, no-nonsense agent he’s been famous for.

Mark Harmon in NCIS | Credit: CBS Studios

Instead, it was a role that brought a whole new set of challenges. It was a character that took Harmon to unexpected places, both in front of the camera and in his acting career.

Mark Harmon’s surprising cop role: How Lucas Davenport outshines Gibbs in complexity Mark Harmon in NCIS | Credit: CBS Studios

Mark Harmon revealed something surprising: there’s one cop role he’s played that even tops his legendary NCIS character, Gibbs. It’s none other than Lucas Davenport from Certain Prey, a role that gave him a whole new set of challenges.

Mark Harmon, or special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs in a longtime role on CBS’s NCIS series, has signed with Gersh.

Harmon originated his Gibbs character with a guest appearance on Jag before being spun off to lead NCIS, a role he played on the CBS procedural for nearly two decades before signing off from his final case in 2021. Going into the ninth season, he was promoted to executive producer on NCIS and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In the 11th season, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Harmon worked closely with showrunner Gary Glasberg on a special two-episode arc that reunited the Gibbs character with an old comrade working a case in New Orleans. Those episodes became the pilot for NCIS: Nola, also known as NCIS: New Orleans, with Harmon serving as executive producer on the spinoff.

Harmon also developed, executive produced and starred in Certain Prey,...

By Beck/Smith

HollywoodNews.com: “NCIS” marks its 200th episode Tuesday (2/7) with a storyline that will bring back past events (and stars) as Mark Harmon’s character sees his life flash before his eyes when he encounters a gunman in a diner. The nice-guy actor-producer is always quick to credit his team when asked about the success of TV’s No. 1 series. In fact, he lets it be known, he doesn’t think about himself and the rest of the cast and crew in terms of star and supporting players: “I don’t see myself in life that way. I know how to do the team thing,” explains the one-time UCLA quarterback.

“Everyone has a say, everyone gets to speak their minds. Everything is out in the open. If there is a problem, we talk about it and deal with it, so it’s a pretty rare way to work.

Mark Harmon is the reigning king of drama on television. With NCIS in its 9th season and NCIS currently the number one drama on television, it is good to be Mark Harmon. It is fascinating that a man who is busily working on such a high profile show would find the time to jump into a made-for-tv film on another network. To answer what lured him to undertake such a challenge, Mark talked with press in a recent conference call and shed a bit of light on the appeal of Certain Prey.

What is it about Lucas Davenport in John Sandford’s book Certain Prey that attracted you to the role?

Mark: Well, he’s an interesting guy. He’s a very successful businessman who dresses nice and drives nice cars and chases the ladies, and yet what he likes more than any of it is just being a cop...

This Sunday at 9/8c, NCIS star Mark Harmon is again on the trail of bad guys (or gals) — but this time as Minneapolis police chief Lucas Davenport, in USA Network’s TV-movie adaptation of Certain Prey, the 10th in a series of best-selling novels by John Sandford.

The set-up: When a cop is shot after witnessing a murder, Davenport suspects that an elusive hit woman, Clara Rinker (Heartland‘s Tatiana Maslany), is in cahoots on a murderous spree with a high-powered attorney (Criminal Minds‘ Lola Glaudini). The cast also includes Athena Karkanis (The Best Years) as Davenport’s subordinate, Det.

On your TV this Sunday: a tally of the tube’s top men, Mark Harmon cops a new role, AMC’s ambitious new train ride, and more. Here are 12 programs to keep on your radar. (P.S. Did you remember to set your clocks back, where applicable? I once forgot for almost an entire Sunday, could not for the life of me figure out why The West Wing wasn’t on.)

8 pm America in Primetime (PBS) | I was remiss last week in not pointing you to this four-part essay on how more groundbreaking TV shows are being created today than ever before.

If you're used to seeing Mark Harmon as the fairly buttoned-down Jethro Gibbs in "NCIS," you may be in for a slight shock Sunday night on USA.

Harmon stars in the cable channel's original movie "John Sandford's Certain Prey" as Lucas Davenport. The character is the deputy police chief in Minneapolis and an aficionado of, among other things, hot cars, women and well-cut suits. (As we said, he's not exactly in Gibbs territory here.) The movie, based on a novel in Sandford's best-selling Davenport series, debuts at 9 p.m. Et Sunday (Nov. 6).

The movie follows Davenport's investigation of the death of a lawyer's wife and subsequent shooting of a police officer. FBI agents who descend on the case think it's the work of a hitwoman (Tatiana Maslany), and Davenport soon discovers that defense lawyer Carmel Loan (Lola Glaudini, and yes that's really the character's name) might be involved as well.

As November sweeps rolls on, CBS’ NCIS next Tuesday at 8/7c will kick off a two-week arc that involves the crash of military plane that was carrying caskets filled with the remains of felled Marines. When the case takes a curious twist, it will prompt Gibbs (played by Mark Harmon) to flash back to his days as a young Marine.

“There’s a huge crime scene, and an investigation takes part in trying to identify those remains — with in some cases the remains not being what they were supposed to be,” Harmon told TVLine during a conference call to promote his USA Network movie,...

NCIS star Mark Harmon has been a busy man. In addition to starring in his hit CBS show weekly as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Harmon has recently found time to produce and star in a new original movie -- John Sandford'' Certain Prey -- airing this Sunday on USA. Mark Harmon spoke to reporters this week about his roles in the movie and on NCIS.

John Sandford’s “Certain Prey” was one of the very first crime books I ever read. Back in the day, I was digesting a steady stream of Robert Ludlum spy novels and Louis L’amour Westerns, but had never really given crime a shot. Sandford’s “Certain Prey” changed that, and I ended up reading every back installment I could find. I stopped after the character became redundant, but I do remember that what I loved most about Sandford’s hero Lucas Davenport (played by Mark Harmon in the new TV movie) was a great problem solver, so I’m looking forward to this one. Bonus brownie points: Eric Lasalle of “ER” fame previously played another iteration of Davenport in the 1999 TV movie “Mind Prey”. (All of Sandford’s Davenport novels have the word “prey” in the title, Fyi.) “John Sandford’s Certain Prey” centers on Lucas Davenport (Harmon), the...

Mark Harmon is appreciating the challenge of tackling his first major role since "NCIS" started.

One of television's top stars makes a one-night departure from his hugely popular Tuesday-night CBS adventure series to appear on USA -- where "NCIS" has a second home through frequent repeats -- in "John Sandford's Certain Prey" Sunday, Nov. 6. The movie is based on one of the 20-plus mystery novels about Lucas Davenport, a Minneapolis police detective who's independently wealthy but still loves his job.

That sentiment is one Harmon surely knows, his ninth year of playing Naval Criminal Investigative Service operative Leroy Jethro Gibbs having won its time period both weeks of the new TV season so far. While he tells Zap2it that an outside venture "puts you back in touch with what the life of an actor is, which is doing different projects," he adds that his heart remains very much in "NCIS.

Variety reports that showrunner Steven Bochco has a drama in development at Showtime. The project is called "Church of Rock," written by Bochco and Chris Gerolmo, who partnered on the FX series "Over There." Variety reports that the details are hush-hush and no work on any casting choices as of yet. Gerolmo will direct the USA Network film "Prey," based on the "Certain Prey" novels, written by John Sandford. Bochco's recent series "Raising the Bar" was canceled by TNT. He created the successful Emmy Award-winning dramatic series Hill Street Blues (1981.89) and La Law (1986.94).