What To Know
- Roma Maffia, who plays Vera Strickland on NCIS, expresses enthusiasm for returning to the show after her recent crossover appearance.
- Maffia believes Vera’s experience, street smarts, and humor make her a valuable consultant for the team, even if she’s no longer chasing suspects physically.
- While Vera’s future on NCIS is uncertain, Maffia is interested in seeing more of the character’s backstory explored in the ’90s-set prequel, Origins.
Vera Strickland is fun — and that’s true both in the present-day of NCIS, played by Roma Maffia, and the ’90s of Origins, starring Diany Rodriguez in the role. Maffia appeared in her second episode of the mothership for the two-part crossover with the prequel this season, and she’s all for coming back.
“I told them, she needs to be back on a regular basis,” Maffia told TV Insider while discussing her return in the November 11 episode. It’s easy for her to step back into her character’s shoes — it was 12 years between her episodes — because “they write her so beautifully.”
It was in her first episode that Vera was days away from retirement, and by this one, she’d semi-settled into that life … but she was bored. And by the end of the crossover, she was reminded of how much she loved the job, though she said she wasn’t coming out of retirement. As for what that means for what’s next for her character, Maffia isn’t sure.
“I think it’s going to take two minutes to Vera to feel like, ‘Oh, no, I’m back now. What am I doing? Making another cup of tea.’ I think that she’s very motivated. I think she got a little taste. I mean, she’s not what she used to be. She’s not going to be running around chasing [suspects], but her brain and her street smarts, I think, are very advantageous for the team. In that way she has a lot to offer,” she told us. “I think she very well could be waiting for her phone [to ring] or another knock at the door or an arrest or a warrant or anything they have to offer.”
In other words, doesn’t it sound like Vera could make a good consultant? Maffia agreed. “She uses a lot of practical knowledge, where I think sometimes the guys are more in their head about steps ahead,” she said.
Plus, like we said, Vera’s just fun. “There’s a level of humor that she brings that I find, the way they write it, very attractive, very real,” Maffia shared. “I’d watch it.”
Whether we see Maffia as Vera in the present day again has yet to be determined. But for now, we are seeing her character in the ’90s on Origins, and Maffia has seen some of that and has ideas on what she’d like to see Rodriguez explore as the younger version.
“She’s more innocent,” Maffia pointed out. “I guess there it’s cumulative because you do get to see the younger version have to come up against things that could make someone a little more hardened. Also in her personal life, what is her personal life? Why is she ending up alone? I’d love to see some of the seeds of that in Origins.”
Do you want to see Roma Maffia return as Vera to NCIS? If so, what would you like to see? Let us know in the comments section below.
NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS