Most actors would probably agree that getting started in the business can be difficult. One thing, however, that can help tremendously is landing guest roles on television shows, like the many that appear on the 2025 TV schedule. This is exactly one of the ways that Emmy winner/Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown made a living for himself before hitting it big with his work on This Is Us and American Crime Story. Over a decade after appearing in one episode of NCIS, however, the Washington Black star is still thinking about how series lead Mark Harmon treated him.
What Did Sterling K. Brown Say About His Guest Role On NCIS And Mark Harmon?
While 2016 was the year that Sterling K. Brown seemed to burst onto the small screen from nowhere with his highly praised (and awarded) roles as Randall Pearson in This Is Us (which still has fans asking him for hugs three years after the series ended) and Christopher Darden in American Crime Story, he’d been kicking around Hollywood for about 15 years before then.
Brown had a regular role on Army Wives from 2007-2013, but was also filling his work days by guest starring on shows like Supernatural, NYPD Blue, JAG, ER, Alias, Without a Trace, Person of Interest, and yes, he’s one of many actors who popped up on NCIS. It turns out that his one 2013 episode of the ever-popular long-running hit (which will be in Season 23 this fall) really had an impact on him, largely because of how he was treated by then-star Mark Harmon. As he recently told People:
I can remember, I did a guest spot on NCIS, and people will say this ... Mark Harmon was the nicest man ever. I was sitting on a rock eating lunch and he was like, 'What are you sitting on the rock for?' I was like, 'All right, man. The rock is comfortable.' He'd just go and grab a chair, pull it over, pull it next to him and his friends. He was like, 'Come on man, sit, join us.’ He was just creating that environment where you were appreciated.
My guess is that, at the very least, coming into a show where the cast has been together for a long time can be intimidating, and at the very worst one could actively be made to feel like they don’t belong or matter. In fact, Brown noted earlier in his interview that he’d been on sets where it was clear “these people could give a flying Fig Newton if I'm here or not,” because he didn’t feel welcome.
So, it makes sense that he would both separate himself from Harmon (who’d starred on the show for eleven seasons at that point) and try not to get involved with the leads even once he was approached by the actor. As we’ve heard from others who worked with Harmon on the procedural, like Scott Wolf (who said the lead “really made me feel welcome there”) and Rocky Carroll (who credits him with making sure the cast and crew were always a “team” and kept them “motivated”), the star stepped up and made sure that Brown felt like he belonged.
This led to him developing a rapport with Harmon (who left the series in Season 19) and being able to get some advice from the actor, who’d made a name for himself on St. Elsewhere in the early ‘80s. Brown continued:
I remember asking him one time — he's like, 'So many people complain about what they do and the hours.' He's like, 'There's nothing wrong with loving what you do.' And that's always a bar that just stuck with me and resonated. I was like, oh, you know what? There is nothing wrong with loving what I do. I think I can carry that forward.
It’s always good to be able to look at and focus on the positives of anything as much as possible, especially when it comes to the amount of time we all spend working every day. Not only is it great to hear that Brown loved his time on NCIS, but that he got some great advice that he still carries with him.
