According to actor Sean Murray, one of the most important pieces of his role as Special Agent Timothy McGee on the hit CBS series NCIS is that the character has evolved over the years.
“Shows are not meant to go that long usually,” Murray told the Chicago Tribune in a recent interview with.
“It is definitely a unique position to do one character and one job for 18 years,” Murray added. “It’s wild.”
Sean Murray Likes to See McGee Character Grow With the NCIS
While Sean Murray’s “wild” time on the hit television series has been fun, the actor is quick to note that his character’s evolution over the seasons has been part of what made the role so great.
“I think that McGee has probably changed over time more so than any of the other characters on the show,” Sean Murray said in the interview. Murray also noted that since the early days of the NCIS series, it was important to him that McGee show some growth as a character.
“We had those conversations right at the beginning,” Murray told the Chicago Tribune.
As a child, Murray played alongside Beau Bridges in the CBS series Harts of the West. Murray later went on to appear in several episodes of JAG. From there, Sean Murray went on to NCIS to portray the technology-minded Timothy McGee.
From the series start in 2003, Sean Murray’s character is depicted as a sort of wet behind the ears newbie. McGee has a sort of and apprehensiveness as he serves as a special agent to the NCIS team. However, over time, Murray noted, McGee begins growing both as an agent, and as a character.
During his interview with the Chicago Tribune, Murray added that with the NCIS storyline introducing the Timothy McGee character as a rookie, there also needed to be room for the character to grow.
“I remember saying, ‘I don’t want it to be like baby ‘Maggie Simpson,'” Murray told the Chicago Tribune. “Where every week you revert to the same character. There has to be growth.”
McGee is a Man of Many Talents
The CBS hit show, NCIS follows a fictional team, the Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) Major Case Response Team (MCRT). The team is headed by Leroy Jethro Gibbs. In the series, it’s clear that McGee’s passion lies in his field-agent duties. However, the NCIS Special Agent has also published some works including the novel “Deep Six.”
Timothy McGee is second in command of the response team. McGee currently serves as the senior field agent for the team. In the rare cases that Gibbs is absent from his duties, it is usually Sean Murray’s character, McGee who steps in as the stand-in leader of the NCIS team.
