“I'm a Different Person Now”. NCIS Actress Pauley Perrette Has No Plans to Return to Acting

After leaving NCIS, Pauley Perrette starred in only one more production, after which she retired from acting, from which she never plans to return.

Edyta Jastrzebska

Source: NCIS, Donald P. Bellisario and Don McGill, CBS, 2003

Pauley Perrette has appeared in more than 350 episodes of NCIS, so there is no doubt that the actress is well known to fans of the TV series. Of course, this is not the only production featuring her, but considering how much time she has devoted to it, it's safe to say that she has invested the most work in this crime title.

But Perrette left the cast in 2018, with the last TV show starring her coming out in 2020. After the sitcom Broke, in which she played the lead role, was canceled, the NCIS star ended her career and, as she confessed in an interview with Hello, she never plans to return to acting again.

I'm not ungrateful for the benefits that it gave to me. But I'm a different person now and I want to be here for it – the good and the bad and the painful. I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it's authentically how I feel.

Perrette has confessed in the past that she became an actress by accident. When she was studying forensic science and sociology, planning to work for the FBI, she guest starred in several TV series, including Fraser. Later this began to develop further until she won a role on NCIS, where she played Abby Sciuto for 15 years.

At this point in my life I have this deep need to find authenticity in everything, and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, was a great escape […] because I didn't have to be me, I could be somebody else. My character didn't have all of the problems that I was having. It's why I only watch documentaries, I want the truth. For me, going back to being an actor would be taking away from this life of true authenticity that I'm living 100% of the time.

Currently, Perrette is not only involved in watching documentaries, but also producing them. In 2023, she was a producer of the documentary Studio One Forever about the iconic American gay disco club.

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Author: Edyta Jastrzebska

A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.