María José "Cote" de Pablo Fernandez (born November 12, 1979 in Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean-American actress and singer.
She is well known for her role on NCIS from 2005 to 2013 as Ziva David, a Mossad/NCIS liaison officer and later a full-time NCIS officer.
After leaving NCIS, she starred in a CBS miniseries called The Dovekeepers, based on the book by Alice Hoffman in 2015 and The 33, which is based on the mining disaster in 2010 which saw 33 Chilean miners trapped underground, being one of the wives of the miners. She was also in a TV movie called Prototype.
Filmography
open/close all folders
Live-Action Films
- The Last Rites of Ransom Pride (2010) as Bruja
- The 33 (2015) as Jessica Vega
- Prototype (2016) as Laura Kale
Live-Action Series
- Control (1994 — 1995) as Herself / Co-host
- The $treet (2000) as Fiona
- The Education of Max Bickford (2001) as Gina
- The Jury (2004) as Marguerite Cisneros
- NCIS (2005 — 2013, 2019 —) as Ziva David
- The Dovekeepers (2015) as Shirah
Tropes associated with Cote de Pablo:
- The Cast Showoff: In the NCIS episode "Last Man Standing", she sang "Temptation" from Tom Waits. Also, she has acted as a vocalist for songs in Roberto Pitre's Vivo En Vida CD. This is because Cote studied music during her youth before becoming an actress.
- Fake Nationality: Ziva David on NCIS was from Israel. Cote de Pablo is Chilean.
- Gender-Blender Name: María José, literally "Mary Joseph".
- Ms. Fanservice: In the sixth season premiere of NCIS, she performs the song Temptation, wearing a blue dress that exposes her back.
- No Stunt Double: She did most of her stunts in NCIS.
- Only Known By Her Nickname: "Cote" is a common Chilean nickname for women with the name "María José". After moving to the U.S., she opted to be called by her nickname instead because it was easy to pronounce and remember (and because otherwise she would have been called "Maria" at school), so her name became "Cote" since then.
