'NCIS: Tony and Ziva' stars tease Tiva arc and share BTS tidbits

NCIS: Tony and Ziva stars Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo knew they had to go deep into the characters’ dynamic for a spin-off to work.

"We went fully into the deep end of the pool. We didn't linger in the shallow, superficial part of it. We just jumped right in," de Pablo told Entertainment Weekly.

Weatherly explained that he and de Pablo would never have said yes to a spin-off if it had seemed like "a money grab."

He admitted that NCIS "imprimatur was going to guarantee some level of interest and success, but Cote and I both realized a long time ago that the kind of emotional connection that a lot of people get watching the show is more than just a kind of procedural thing. They're very invested in these characters."

Weatherly and de Pablo’s onscreen romance began in 2005 and soon they were dubbed Tiva by devoted fans of the franchise. They are returning a decade after their characters’ last outings.

The actors revealed that the spin-off’s inception took place during a long dinner with director Michelle MacLaren and discussed where the characters would be after all these years.

"Remember Cote? We got into it. Like, 'Maybe there's been drug addiction, what about this, and that,'" Weatherly said to de Pablo.

De Pablo agreed, revealing that they "didn't want it to live in the procedural world, right? We wanted to sort of detach ourselves from the agency, [and] we wanted the characters to go back to Europe. They had to somehow reinvent themselves."

NCIS: Tony and Ziva will premiere on September 4.