Main

• Chris O'Donnell as G. Callen, NCIS Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Special Projects.^[11]
• Peter Cambor as Nate Getz (season 1; recurring seasons 2–8 and 13–14), Operational Psychologist, and later NCIS Special Agent.
• Daniela Ruah as Kensi Blye, NCIS Special Agent attached to the Office of Special Projects.
• Adam Jamal Craig as Dominic Vail (season 1), NCIS Probationary Agent and Technical Specialist.
• Linda Hunt as Henrietta "Hetty" Lange (seasons 1–12; guest seasons 13–14), NCIS Supervisory Special Agent and Operations Manager of the Office of Special Projects.
• LL Cool J as Sam Hanna, NCIS Senior Special Agent and ex–Navy SEAL and second-in-command of the Office of Special Projects.
• Barrett Foa as Eric Beale (seasons 1–12), NCIS Technical Operator.
• Eric Christian Olsen as Marty Deeks (seasons 2–14; recurring season 1), NCIS Investigator and ex-LAPD detective who previously served as liaison officer for NCIS/LAPD^[12]
• Renée Felice Smith as Nell Jones (seasons 2–12; guest season 14), NCIS Special Agent and Intelligence Analyst.
• Miguel Ferrer as Owen Granger (seasons 5–8; recurring seasons 3–4), NCIS Assistant Director.
• Nia Long as Shay Mosley (seasons 9–10), NCIS Executive Assistant Director for Pacific Operations (EAD-PAC) and ex-Secret Service Agent.
• Medalion Rahimi as Fatima Namazi (seasons 11–14; recurring seasons 10–11), NCIS Special Agent with the Office of Special Projects.
• Caleb Castille as Devin Rountree (seasons 12–14; recurring season 11), NCIS Special Agent and ex-FBI Agent.
• Gerald McRaney as Hollace Kilbride (seasons 13–14; guest seasons 6 and 11; recurring seasons 10 and 12), ex–US Navy Admiral and NCIS Director of Special Operations.

Recurring

• Rocky Carroll as Leon Vance, the director of NCIS (seasons 1–3 and 6): He initially spent a great amount of time "getting the new LA office up and running", but still returns to ensure the well-being of his agents. Carroll also appears on both NCIS (as a regular), and NCIS: New Orleans.^[13][14] He makes a seventh appearance in "Hunted". Vance appears in the season two finale and season three premiere. He makes his tenth appearance during season six.
• Brian Avers as Mike Renko, an agent attached to NCIS's Los Angeles satellite office (seasons 1 and 3): He often works with OSP. An undercover operative, Renko later reported directly to Owen Granger. The team were fond of him, so it came as a shock when he was gunned down during an operation gone awry in a revenge attack.
• Kathleen Rose Perkins as Rose Schwartz, a Los Angeles County Medical Examiner (seasons 1–4): She often assists the team on their investigations. She is incredibly quirky and develops an affinity for Nate Getz, showing great romantic interest in the psychologist.
• Ronald Auguste as Moe Dusa, a man whom Sam first came into contact with in Sudan (seasons 1–2): A "brother" to Sam, of sorts, he joins a terrorist group and assists in the kidnapping of Dom. Developing a conscience, Moe assists in Dom's escape. He is later found dead by the NCIS agents.
• Vyto Ruginis as Arkady Kolcheck, a retired Russian operative. He is friends with Callen. He considers himself to be of great assistance to the NCIS team but often brings trouble in his wake. He has a daughter, Anastasia, whom he does not know very well.
• Claire Forlani as Lauren Hunter, an NCIS Operations Manager and SSA (seasons 2–3): Taken in by Hetty as a teenager, Lauren later becomes an NCIS agent and succeeds Hetty for a short time as Special Agent in Charge of OSP. Initially adversarial, the team later warmed to Hunter. She was reassigned following Lange's return but was later kidnapped and murdered by the Chameleon. Her death has a lasting effect on Lange.
• Indira G. Wilson/Aunjanue Ellis as Michelle Hanna aka "Quinn" (seasons 3–8): Sam Hanna's wife, Michelle, is a former deep-cover CIA operative. At the end of the eighth season, Michelle is kidnapped and murdered by Tahir Khaled in a vendetta against Sam.
• Layla Crawford/Kayla Smith as Kamran Hanna (seasons 3−4, 6, 8, and 12), Sam Hanna's daughter.^[15]
• Christopher Lambert as Marcel Janvier, a serial killer and criminal mastermind (season 3–5): When Marcel is conducting business transactions, his modus operandi is to buy the supplies for his employers and then arrange a drop-off for the merchandise. He is the primary antagonist to Callen during the show's third season and is responsible for the deaths of Hunter and Renko.
• Scott Grimes as Dave Flynn, an NCIS Special Agent (seasons 4 and 8): Initially an NCIS forensic specialist assigned to the elite rapid response NCIS: Red team stationed out of San Diego, Dave later transfers to San Diego's NCIS: Cyber, where he retrains as a senior intelligence analyst.
• Erik Palladino as Vostanik Sabatino, a CIA Agent (seasons 4–5, 7–8, and 10–14): He is arrested by the team while deep undercover. He is friends with Michelle Hanna and later joins Kensi Blye's Afghanistan team. Kensi initially believes him to be her suspect, but she later realizes he is a skilled operative and will be of great use to her. In season 8, it is revealed that Sabatino is working as part of a rogue CIA faction attempting to dismantle the NCIS team.
• Anslem Richardson as Tahir Khaled, a local warlord in Sudan (seasons 3 and 7–8): A war criminal and warlord, he came into conflict with CIA agents and later NCIS agents Sam Hanna and G. Callen when they went to collect evidence about the genocide he was involved in. He is Sam's arch-enemy and began plotting revenge when Sam took his sister, Jada, from him. He is the primary antagonist of the seventh and eighth seasons, and later murders Sam's wife, Michelle, near the end of season eight. He eventually kills himself via bomb in a last (failed) attempt to kill Sam.
• Matthew Del Negro as Jack Simon (seasons 5 and 7): Kensi's ex-fiancé, who was suspected of being a war-criminal known as 'The White Ghost'. Kensi was assigned to assassinate him in the series' fifth season.
• Elizabeth Bogush as CIA Officer Joelle Taylor (seasons 5–13): Callen's ex-girlfriend, she is introduced as a teacher at a private school before it is revealed that she is part of the rogue CIA group tasked with dismantling the Office of Special Projects. In season 9, she, with the help of Callen, Sam, and Nell, fakes her death in order to take down the group behind the rogue CIA group. The group is known as the syndicate.
• Bar Paly as Anastasia "Anna" Kolcheck, a freelance NCIS Special Agent (seasons 6–14): The estranged daughter of Arkady Kolcheck, she is a prospective ATF agent who begins filling in on NCIS missions while Kensi is on medical leave. Following Kensi's return, Anna embarks on a relationship with Callen and joins NCIS as a Special Agent on a freelance basis. Callen proposes to her in the season 13 finale with them marrying in the series finale.
• John M. Jackson as A. J. Chegwidden (seasons 8–9), retired Rear Admiral and former Judge Advocate General of the Navy. A wartime confidant of both Hetty and Granger, Chegwidden served in Vietnam as a Navy Seal. He reenters the NCIS fold at Lange's behest during an investigation into the CIA. Jackson previously appeared as Chegwidden in nine seasons of JAG, and in one episode of NCIS.
• Andrea Bordeaux as Harley Hidoko, NCIS Special Agent (season 9): Executive Assistant to EADPAC Mosley. She starts off as fiercely loyal to her boss, but soon forms a friendship with the rest of the OSP team. At the end of the ninth season, Hidoko goes missing during an off-the-books mission in Mexico to rescue Mosley's son, and is revealed to have been captured and murdered by a cartel allied with Mosley's criminal ex-husband. Her remains are identified at the end of the tenth season premiere.
• Jeff Kober as Harris Keane (seasons 9–10 and 13): A soldier who served in the CIA contingent led by Hetty and Granger in the Vietnam War. Keane was captured by Viet Cong and held captive for decades until he was rescued along with Hetty by the NCIS LA team.
• Ashley Spillers as Sydney Jones (seasons 9–10): A specialist for Homeland Security.
• Esai Morales as Louis Ochoa, NCIS Deputy Director (season 10): Ochoa temporarily takes over directing the team in Hetty's absence.
• Peter Jacobson as Special Prosecutor John Rogers (seasons 10–11): Rogers arrives at the Los Angeles office to investigate the team, but soon gets pulled into helping them out on their operations.
• David James Elliott as Harmon Rabb Jr. (seasons 10–11), a Naval Captain transferred from the Judge Advocate General to the USS Allegiance. Elliot reprised his role from JAG.
• Catherine Bell as Sarah MacKenzie (seasons 10–11), the former commander of Joint Legal Services Southwest who now acts as the Marine Corps liaison to the U.S. Secretary of State. Bell reprised her role from JAG.
• Sasha Clements as Katya Miranova (season 13), nemesis of Callen and Anna
• Natalia del Riego as Rosa Reyes (seasons 13–14), a teenage migrant seeking asylum, who is later fostered by Kensi and Deeks.
• Kavi Ramachandran Ladnier as Shyla Dahr (seasons 13–14), NCIS Reserve Agent and Namazi’s analyst partner in OSP.
• Richard Gant as Colonel (retd.) Raymond Hanna (seasons 13–14), Sam's father.

Crossover

Other

• Louise Lombard as Lara Macy; a former Military Police Lieutenant and the Supervisory Special Agent of OSP, Macy was relieved of her position sometime between the pilot episode and the beginning of season one. Hetty remarks she was sent to Djibouti in retaliation for insubordination regarding budget, although the truthfulness of this is unknown. After a short time working with an NCIS satellite division, Macy is found dead in an NCIS episode, murdered as part of a vendetta against Washington Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Lombard was not picked up as a regular in the new series and the character was killed in the NCIS episode "Patriot Down".^[16][17][18]

Crossovers

Lawsuit

In April 2011, NCIS creator Donald Bellisario sued CBS over NCIS: Los Angeles because of his contract which gave him "first opportunity" to develop a spin-off or sequel;^[24] the lawsuit was dismissed by a judge in June 2012. However, discussions continued between CBS and Bellisario, and in January 2013 the dispute was settled outside of court a week before it was set to go to trial; the terms of the agreement were not disclosed but were described as being amicable.^[25][26][27]

Critical reception

"Identity", the series' first episode, garnered 18.73 million viewers with a 4.4/11 share in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic and therefore won its timeslot. It was the second-most-watched show of the week, behind only the original NCIS.^[31]

Reviews for the show have been mixed. It has a score of 59/100 on Metacritic. According to Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, "The crime is intriguing and multifaceted, its resolution requiring a nice balance of street smarts and lots of gunfire. But as with the original 'NCIS', the emphasis is on the characters of the team... Los Angeles, meanwhile, looks fabulous, a pleasing mixture of noir and gridlock, and there's an air of stability that's comforting in these uncertain times."^[32] The New York Daily News reviewer, David Hinckley, was more critical of the show saying that although "It all adds up to an hour of decent entertainment, and there's room for enough character development to give 'NCIS: Los Angeles' a personality of its own, ... a premiere episode shouldn't feel even a little like something we've already seen."^[33]

Tom Shales of The Washington Post felt that, "NCIS: Los Angeles gets the job done ... It's a procedural that follows strictly the established procedure, but it has likable characters, dislikable bad guys and the occasional flabbergasting shot of L.A."^[34] Robert Bianco of USA Today summarized it as a "serviceable hour that takes the NCIS formula—a light tone and a lot of banter wrapped around a fairly rudimentary investigatory plot—and transfers it to a special, undercover NCIS division in Los Angeles. Nothing more, but also nothing less."^[35] The Hollywood Reporter compared the show to The A-Team with "the same lighthearted approach to life-or-death situations. Maybe the biggest change is that 'NCIS: L.A.' achieves its inevitably favorable outcomes with a little more intellect and a little less testosterone."^[36] IGN stated that although "NCIS: Los Angeles doesn't exactly reinvent the police procedural... it's another above-average entry, aided by the fact that the people behind the show know what they're doing" and ultimately gave the episode a 7.7/10.^[37] On the website of IMDb, the series has a score of 6,8/10 on 57 000 critics.^[38]

Ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of NCIS: Los Angeles on CBS.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of the May sweeps.

Awards and nominations