Mark Harmon revealed a fun fact about the very early days of NCIS: his character almost had a totally different name.

If you don’t know, the 72-year-old actor starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the CBS fan favorite for 19 seasons before exiting the long-running series in 2021.

Mark recently opened up about what initially intrigued him about the television role and how the series creator almost changed his character’s name to something very different.

Keep reading to find out more…

“I read ‘Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ and thought, ‘Huh, I like that name,’” he told ET of what got his interest. “And then for a brief second when I decided that I liked the idea of the project, the name changed.”

“[It was] Bob Johnson or something like that. And I went, ‘No, no, it’s gotta be Leroy Jethro Gibbs.’ The creator said, ‘No, you can’t play a guy named Leroy Jethro Gibbs,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’” Mark added. “And then it went back and I was happy about it.”

If you didn’t know, there were 11 big name actors who were considered for the role of Special Agent Gibbs!