EXCLUSIVE: NCIS: New Orleans alumna Necar Zadegan is returning to CBS as a series regular on the network’s upcoming drama series CIA, headlined by Tom Ellis and Nick Gehlfuss. Zadegan will play one of the leads in the FBI offshoot, the Chief of Station role originally played by Michael Michele who departed the series earlier this month.
CIA, which started production in September, has been on hiatus for the past two weeks following the exit of Warren Leight as showrunner. Leight, who had replaced original showrunner David Hudgins in July, left shortly after the departures of Michele and the series’ director/executive producer Eriq La Salle.
Mike Weiss, showrunner of the mothership FBI series, who had been is in talks to add showrunner duties on CIA, has closed his deal and has officially joined the offshoot as executive producer and showrunner. It is unclear when filming, paused for the showrunner changeover, will resume.
CBS earlier this week unveiled its midseason premiere dates, with CIA slated to debut Feb. 23 in the Monday 10 PM slot behind FBI. Both series come from Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group in association with Wolf Entertainment and CBS Studios.
Amid the behind-the-scene shakeup at CIA, industry observers point to the flagship FBI which also went through two showrunner changes, one in the summer and one in the fall, following a straight-to-series order.
CIA centers on two unlikely partners – a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer (Ellis), and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent (Gehlfuss) who believes in the rule of law. When this odd couple are assigned to work out of CIA’s New York Station, they must learn to work together to investigate cases and criminals posing threats on U.S. soil, finding that their differences may actually be their strength.
Along with Ellis and Gehlfuss, Zadegan joins fellow CIA series regular Natalee Linez who plays a CIA analyst.
In addition to NCIS: New Orleans, on which she was a series regular for three seasons, Zadegan had major roles on Girlfriends’ Guide To Divorce, Here and Now, Emily Owens, M.D., Rake Extant and, most recently, Mayor of Kingstown. On the film side, she recently shot the Miramax spy thriller Inheritance directed by Neil Burger. Zadegan is repped by Independent Artist Group, M88 and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher.
