Giving scripts the third degree
Leon Carroll Jr.
Technical advisor on the CBS series “NCIS”
Previous credits: An agent for the real Naval Criminal Investigative Service for 23 years.
Job description: “I advise the producers, the writers and the actors on all the aspects of what the real agency would do based on their scripts and their story lines -- what would be the accurate way of doing things.
“I can give them the advice and they can take it or not take it, and quite often for dramatic reasons they choose to do the Hollywood version, which is fine. It is usually a lot more exciting than what we would really do. It is just a guidance thing of giving them a baseline.”
Procedures: “Normally, I start at the end of the previous season to try to get an idea of where the show wants to go from a story line aspect for the following season. My brain is working on what the writers are planning to do. Normally, I’ll meet with them on their specific ideas or with executive producer-creator Don Bellisario on where he wants to go for the following season.
“Once the season starts, I do attend the concept meetings where the writer presents an unofficial script. But normally I will have talked to that writer, so I know where they are trying to go with that particular story line. And then once that’s done, the scripts are sent out and the department heads see it. I’ll get questions from all the other department heads whether it be props on what type of instruments should the actors have in their hands if they are doing crime scenes.
“I work sometimes with set dressing if they are doing a particular office that may resemble some of the real offices in the NCIS chain. I’ll go and get photos for them of a particular NCIS office.”
Guest star: “I have been in the show by default! The first time, they didn’t have enough background people for a particular scene. So they asked me as well as others who work behind the scenes if we would fill in. Our director of photography, Bill Webb, started the shot with the camera right in my face. I think he did that to rub it in. I never told my wife this was going to happen, so we were sitting there watching the show and she couldn’t believe I was there big as daylight.”
Background: “I was a Marine officer. I went in in 1972 and got out in 1978. But during that time I learned about what was then called NIS, Naval Investigative Service. I met a few folks at Camp Pendleton, where I was assigned, who were agents or had been agents. Then when I decided to get out in 1978, I applied. I didn’t get hired the first time around because I didn’t have an advanced degree. So thought I better go back to school and work on a master’s degree. I didn’t complete it. Just as I was getting to start working on my thesis in criminal justice, they hired me.”
Working Agent: “I started at the naval station in Long Beach. Then I went to our headquarters in Washington, D.C., and then I was an agent afloat on an aircraft carrier out of San Diego, and from there I came back to L.A. and I was the assistant special agent in charge for counterintelligence here. Then I was transferred to the republic of Panama. Then I was reassigned to Norfolk, Va., where I was an assistant regional director ...
“I worked on some serious cases, but most of my time, quite frankly, was involved in counterintelligence and a lot of that I still can’t talk about.
“I retired the first time in January 2001. After 9/11, they were looking for some people who had left to come back and I volunteered to go back and I was reassigned here at the Los Angeles office. I did recruiting of new agents.”
Injured on duty: “I was never hurt. We thank God for this -- none of our agents have been killed as a result of a hostile action. We have had agents die on duty as a result of accidents and things like that, but never anyone shot or stabbed to death.”
Interrogation techniques: “I never tortured anybody, so we’ll put that out there for the record. We are all trained in [interrogation] and actually NCIS agents like to think that we are the best interrogators in federal law enforcement. I don’t think you’ll get too many arguments about that.
“That is certainly one of the things I enjoyed doing and spent a lot of time doing when I was a street agent. I enjoyed it because you are one on one, matching wits with someone and in most cases they think they can outwit you.
“The whole key to interrogations is being so prepared when you go into that room that you almost know what that person’s answers are going to be before you ask the questions.”
Resides: San Pedro
Age: 56
Union or guild: None
-- Susan King
