Should his NCIS character die, Wilmer Valderrama wants to go out in a blaze of glory.
The actor revealed his idea for NCIS Special Agent Nick Torres’ possible death while speaking at a recent Monte-Carlo Television Festival panel, according to People.
“Like Denzel Washington in Training Day — just go out,” Valderrama said, referring to Washington’s corrupt cop, Det. Alonzo Harris, dying in a Russian mafia ambush in the 2001 film.
“I think not being the bad guy, of course I’d like to die as a good guy,” Valderrama added. “But defending my family somehow, just in a storm of bullets. I just see a storm of bullets just washing over me, just dying heroically with violins in the background and the rain is pouring.”
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Costar Brien Dietzen suggested “some white doves” for that death scene, but Valderrama thought that image seemed “a little too Nicolas Cage.”
Dietzen, for his part, had a thought about his character’s possible death, suggesting that Dr. Jimmy Palmer could die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. “It’s a terrible disease,” Dietzen said. “That would be beautiful, it would be tragic, it would be sad.”
In a 2014 video on NCIS’ YouTube page, Dietzen took the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness of the motor neuron disease and to raise funds for the ALS Association. And at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival panel, the actor imagined ALS affecting his onscreen counterpart.
“Seeing that progression over time, especially for someone who’s a scientist, who’s a doctor, [to lose] control of his physical faculties and [try] to cover it up over the course of time, but his mind still works until he finally passes … would be a pretty cool thing to do and to bring to light,” Dietzen said.
NCIS, Season 22, Mondays This Fall, 9/8c, CBS