Wilmer Valderrama on Who Nick Torres Is Willing to Die for in the ‘NCIS’ Season 21 Premiere

The season 21 premiere of NCIS picks up where the story left off with Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) threatening to kill the man from his childhood who abused his family. When they were children, both Nick and his sister Lucia (Pilar Holland), had vowed to get their revenge, using the code word “Algún Día.” Well that day appears to have come and Nick will do whatever it takes to protect his sister.

“He’s preserving the one thing that’s still alive in his life, still very much current in his life,” Valderrama tells Parade. “I think that was an intentional plot point to really say, 'Hey, without her, in Torres’ mind, he doesn’t have anything else.'”

In this episode, Torres reverts to his lone wolf ways. Since the departure of Gibbs (Mark Harmon), he has felt abandoned as Gibbs served as a father figure for him, so when Algún Día arrives, Torres is willing to risk everything, including his hard-earned sobriety to get the long delayed revenge for his family he has been seeking.

“He’s willing to throw it all away,” Valderrama continues. “In this episode, you’re going to see a character go so far that he’s going to surprise himself. He’s not going to recognize himself in the mirror and he’s going to become something else. Something else is going to take over that is not the Torres that you love. This is a character that’s going to go through pretty traumatic stuff and he’s going to be blinded by a search for not only healing, but for justice that has been waiting too long to be done. I think that’s going to be an interesting thing to see.”

And it’s not as if the team isn’t behind him. McGee (Sean Murray), Knight (Katrina Law) and Parker (Gary Cole) all want to support Nick, but he’s left them a message that puts his innocence in question.

“In the season premiere, you see him give the warning,” Valderrama says. “He sends everyone a video and he says, ‘I’m going to do something and you’re going to want to help me, but you can’t.’ Then he goes through with it.”

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Going through with it, though, may have a double meaning to it, even as he confesses, and it’s up to the team to determine if what Nick is in a lot of trouble for is real or not.

“It’s going to create a major question mark on what is the trajectory, where does he go from here, is he going to keep the badge, is he going to stay in jail, what crime did he really commit? A lot of this stuff is very unpredictable in this episode. You don’t see a lot of the stuff coming. I think the writers did a beautiful job of burying all the different leads in the plot. But I do love the opportunity to continue to explore his humanity.”

During our conversation, Valderrama also talks more about how he develops the character of Nick Torres, the upcoming tribute to David McCallum that will air Feb. 19, and what came first – his USO ambassadorship or his job on NCIS.

Talk about the decision for Torres to revert to the old Nick?

When I have these meetings with the showrunners about trajectory, arcs and runway of the character, we talk a lot about the true evolution of his humanity as he experiences life on the show. I don’t want to ever play the same character every year. I want the character to feel that he carries a little bit of either experience or weight or scars from the previous seasons. It makes it a little bit more interesting for me as an actor, a little more interesting to continue to remember those things and play him in there.

I think for a show like this, one that has the gift of having the runway to really plan ahead for these characters, we really do take advantage of that. We don’t just do the episode, the case of the week. I think that’s what’s special about the show is that we really are investing in the lead characters. Not that they’re just solving the case but that they also have a life that is just as fascinating as the case of the week.

How much did Gibbs’ departure affect the changes that Torres had made toward becoming a team member?

For someone like Torres that came in a certain way, he’s a lone wolf and experiences all these different things, and he buys into this team mentality. And then he starts experiencing abandonment. That really taps into one of the reasons why he was a lone wolf. Then he decides to ignore it and gives into his team and decides these are the people that I’ll die for.

For a couple of years, he does that, and then certain instances continue to bring him back. Then with Gibbs’ departure, he thought to himself, “What’s the point? Everyone leaves and I guess I’ve got to start looking out for myself.” He starts slowly going back to the guy that he had evolved from because he was safer that way.

Related: Everything You Need to Know as NCIS Heads Into Its 21st Season

And yet family is a big part of this story. His sister, Lucia is back. So much of what happens is based on his desire to keep her safe but his team is also his family.

In this episode, he gets reminded that he has more than just Lucia, and that his team is going to go the distance to prove the truth and to be there for him.

And furthermore, he’s going to understand his contribution to this team and why he’s really needed. That will be a new purpose for him. I think that last season, we constructed his confidence in the team, and it all came to a head when he said, “Now I can throw it away because I’ve got to go on this solo mission. I’ve been waiting for too long for justice.”

But what’s really cool is that we get to have the runway to play this character in such a way where if he does go back to his old ways, it’s going to get very complicated. But if he gets back to his family and his team, you’re going to have a pretty explosive Torres because he’s going to do whatever it takes to protect his own.

The week after this airs, NCIS is doing a tribute to David McCallum. What can we expect? Will there be flashbacks where we’re going to actually get to see him? Or is this all going to be an episode about people doing something in his honor?

It is everything you wish this episode could be. Especially as one of his friends and one of his costars, it’s exactly the episode we needed as his friends and as his costars. It’s an episode that really embodies his energy, his spirit, what he left behind. It’s not just a tribute. We have this odd opportunity to develop an episode that infuses real life and allows our characters as well as us as the actors playing them to mourn and to be among community. We, as actors, needed that episode.

I can’t even imagine the fans that he loved and that loved him so much, I can’ t even imagine how much they are waiting for this episode. I think this episode is going to be really beautiful, really fun. It’s going to be humorous at times, because it’s important to remember the lightness of it all. There’s some really memorable things that we do in this episode that I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised about.

Related: NCIS Will Pay Tribute to David McCallum With a Special Episode

There’s only ten episodes this season, so what can we expect? Are we going to do a lot of stuff with people’s families and personal lives? Or is it just going to be the case of the week?

We are going to explore our lead characters even more. To have such a shortened season gives us the runway to really go for it. I think it’s kind of timely. I think this first episode should be a good tone setter for things to come. I think with this episode you realize we’re going to continue to dive deeper and deeper into our characters’ reality, who they are as people and what made them who they are today.

By all these means, these are not going to be biopics on each character, but we are going to infuse so much more of their personal outlook and their personal dilemmas. We’re going to really get to know these characters and their layers. I think that because we have ten episodes, we get to really play with [the idea of]: Can this be the season where every episode feels like a season premiere? Where it feels like the stories are going to places that we never have the runway to because normally we have to set up a case. We do have a case of the week, but it’s going to be also infused with a lot of personal feelings. We’re going to meet other families; we’re going to introduce new characters. Not regular leading characters, but more people in our lives as characters on the show.

A lot of that is something that the fans can look forward to, and because it’s only ten episodes, every episode is going to be like what, what, what? We’re going to go to all these crazy places. It’s been really refreshing for us as actors because when we read the scripts, we’re like, “Wow the writers are really going there? That’s a place we want to be.” I think that episode one and episode two also stand alone as something that very rarely you have the opportunity to do on television. And then episode three and four are also departures in different ways.

You’re a USO ambassador. Is that as a result of being on NCIS or you were already doing that and that’s why the role on NCIS was so interesting to you?

I’ve been a USO member for almost 20 years. I’ve done over 50 engagements, performances, and tours. I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times. The USO has been such a calling for me, and I’ve loved so much showing up for the USO. In the last however many years, I got a call from the CEO. They said, “Hey, they want to talk to you about something. Would you be open to starting our first program as the head of the global ambassadors for the USO?” It was the honor of my life. As a tour veteran, I want to do more.

I’ve been a global ambassador for a long time. In figuring out what other people embody that energy, I recruited Vanessa [Lachey]. She’s a really old friend of mine. We’ve known each other since the beginning of our careers. Franchises aside, we’ve always been really, really supportive and great friends. Her heart is in the right place. She’s also an Army brat. So, I was like, “Dude, you belong here.” I invited her and we announced her as our next ambassador.

For me personally, I’ve been a major supporter of our men and women in uniform and their families and our returning veterans. I’ve done a lot of work with returning veterans and I’ve done a lot of work with the USO. I’ve brought a lot of entertainment to the troops all over the world, from Korea to Germany to Africa to you name it. I’ve been everywhere.

Naturally, when I had an opportunity to do NCIS, I felt like it was pretty cool. It was very, very much about what I love in paying tribute to those guys and really making sure I get it right. That’s how it all has gelled together.

NCIS does a lot of location filming. This California rainstorm has to be screwing with your schedule.

We’re very lucky because we have six sound stages. Our team is just outstanding. They can build anything. They can build a hotel room, they can build an apartment, they can build a courthouse. We have the room to do all of it. So right now, because we knew this was coming, we filmed our locations at the beginning when it wasn’t raining. So, when we knew the rain was coming, we went inside to the sound stages. So very lucky. But the rain was very loud at times. You could really hear it inside the sound stages. But getting to work was definitely crazy.

NCIS airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

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