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Kyle Schmid doesn’t consider himself a Method actor. But for each of his auditions to play Mike Franks, the larger-than-life mentor of protagonist Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the new “NCIS” prequel “Origins,” the Canadian actor — in keeping with Muse Watson’s portrayal of Franks in the original series — decided to adopt a Texas drawl.
It was an accent so convincing that Schmid managed to fool just about everyone on the creative team, including Gina Lucita Monreal and David North, the creators and showrunners of “NCIS: Origins,” which airs Mondays on CBS and Global.
Set in 1991, 10 years before the start of “NCIS,” “Origins” tells the story of newly minted special agent Gibbs (played by Austin Stowell) who, after tragically losing his wife and daughter while deployed overseas, joins the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s fledgling Camp Pendleton office.
Schmid plays Franks, a bold and brash Vietnam War veteran who was responsible for pulling Gibbs into the agency and shaping him into the taciturn chief investigator played by Mark Harmon in the original show. (Harmon and his son Sean, who played a younger Gibbs on “NCIS,” serve as executive producers of the prequel.)
“Franks sees in Gibbs this vulnerable character who needs to be helped out of the darkness, similar to what happened to him before he was able to get sober,” Schmid explained on a video call from his home in Los Angeles. “Franks does let Gibbs off potentially a little too easy … but that’s Mike’s way of showing his love and giving this character what he thinks he needs. It’s giving him a little bit of space to make mistakes.”
While “Origins” is the sixth instalment of the venerable “NCIS” universe, the series, by virtue of its ’90s setting, feels a little grittier — with characters who are, in some cases, products of their era.
“I describe (Franks) as this cowboy hippie because he’s got a heart of gold, but he’s really rough around the edges,” Schmid said. “He says all these offhanded things that nowadays would just not fly. But if you cut out the sensitivity of what he is saying, there is a truth to it.”
Playing truth-tellers has always appealed to the Toronto-born Schmid, who is best known for his work in History Channel’s “Six,” BBC America’s “Copper” and Syfy’s “Being Human.” But “Origins” marks the start of a new chapter for Schmid, who, on a rare day off in early October, giddily recounted the story of his casting.
Although he admittedly didn’t have much of a connection with “NCIS,” Schmid immediately fell in love with the “unapologetic” nature of Franks. While visiting his in-laws in Florida, he was suddenly asked to do a callback with producers via Zoom. An hour before the meeting, the blue-eyed Schmid and his wife, Caity Lotz of “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” begged a Walmart optometrist to give them brown-coloured contact lens samples to match Muse Watson’s eyes. (The optometrist, an “NCIS” fan, relented after learning what they were for.)
Just before he and Lotz were to begin production on the Lifetime movie “Yoga Teacher Killer: The Kaitlin Armstrong Story” in Vancouver, Schmid had to fly back to Los Angeles to test for the role.
“Austin Stowell looks at me halfway through the meeting and he’s like, ‘Where are you from?’ I look at him and just deadpan: ‘Toronto. F—king wild, isn’t it?’ And his jaw drops because I don’t sound or walk or talk at this point like I’m from Toronto,” Schmid recalled with a laugh. “It’s such an actor’s dream to be able to play somebody that is not like you at all.”
In a joint email, Lucita Monreal and North confirmed Schmid’s story, revealing that they were “shocked” to hear the actor’s real speaking voice during their congratulatory phone call.
Upon landing the role, Schmid became much more acquainted with the significance of Mike Franks’ role in “NCIS.” He and the rest of the cast were given a behind-the-scenes tour of Camp Pendleton, the major West Coast base of the U.S. Marine Corps. Studying old videos of Watson, who was born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, allowed Schmid to pick up on the inherent confidence, and distinctive rhythm and cadence of his dialogue.
It also helped that the elder Harmon offered to connect Schmid with the man himself: “It was easy to talk to Muse and absorb who he was because Muse is very much Mike Franks: somebody who had such a big heart but was also a no-bulls—t kind of guy,” Schmid said.
Playing a character in the ’90s, before the advent of a lot of modern technology, has also made Schmid reflect on his own upbringing in a working-class, blue-collar family in Mississauga.
His mother would often drop him off at the movie theatre at Square One with a roll of quarters in his socks that he could call her on a pay phone when he was ready to get picked up. He played on the Erin Mills soccer team for 10 years, competing in tournaments all over Mississauga, Brampton and Oakville. During the summers, he and his friends would regularly ride their bikes from Port Credit to Clarkson.
“Growing up there, you’re friends with every culture you can imagine,” said Schmid, who makes it a point to return to Toronto a few times a year. “My buddies were Jamaican, and we’d be having curry goat and playing dominoes in the basement. My dad always used to celebrate by taking us to Colossus (Greek) restaurant in Port Credit. My four best friends are Argentinian, Greek and Chinese, and they stood up at my wedding. I moved away when I was 20, but what a wonderful place to grow up culturally.”
Although he was a naturally performative child, Schmid didn’t act in plays growing up, opting instead to build sets and make the crocodile costume for his school’s production of “Peter Pan.” (Schmid’s father was a carpenter and his stepfather a mechanic, so he grew up working with his hands and even made a living building furniture during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Schmid’s mother one day signed him up for commercials, reasoning that he could save the money he made for college. He eventually got into the University of Guelph, never really considering acting to be a viable career path. But during the making of the Disney Channel film “The Cheetah Girls,” in which Schmid played Raven-Symoné’s love interest, producer Debra Martin Chase took notice of his talents and convinced his mother to let him move to Los Angeles.
“Debra managed me for the first five years of my career while I was in California and also ended up being a wonderful mentor in my life,” Schmid said. “There have been many times over the past 20 years I’d regretted not finishing (school), wishing I’d had a better backup plan. But perhaps that’s also what kept me so driven to succeed in such a difficult industry — failure wasn’t an option.”
Last November, Schmid unexpectedly lost his mother. A month later, he and Lotz learned they were expecting their first child. “In the strangest way, it really felt like my mother was handing off the baton and saying goodbye,” he said.
“When one door closes, another door opens. I’m playing this kind of hippie cowboy. My mother was very much this hippie cowboy; we had a farm in Caledon and she rode horses every day. That’s the universe doing something, right?”
A few days after Lotz gave birth to their daughter, Lennox, Schmid was back on the “Origins” set to begin working on “the heaviest episode of television” he has ever shot. The demands of early fatherhood mean that Schmid is sometimes beginning 16-hour workdays with little to no sleep, but he feels a particular satisfaction in knowing he is able to be a present father and husband amidst a career-defining moment.
“I’m at this point in my life where I’ve been able to clear my head. I have my wife, who is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met in my life. And now, having this beautiful little girl gives you perspective,” Schmid said, with his newborn daughter sleeping next to him in a rocker during our conversation. “Every morning I wake up and, without a doubt, by the time I’m out of the shower, I am the luckiest person in the world.”
“NCIS: Origins” airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Global TV and can be streamed on StackTV.
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