Getting to Attend Paley Fest 2022

For the first time in several years – pandemic excluded – I actually attended a couple of panels for Paley Fest 2022.

The final day of this year’s event was held this past Sunday with an afternoon panel saluting the world of NCIS – with cast and creatives from all three current shows in that universe in attendance.

The set-up for this panel was slightly different than expected. Typically, all of the attending cast and creatives would be crammed onto the stage together, but this time around each show got to take the stage individually, starting with NCIS: Hawaii then the flagship NCIS followed by NCIS: Los Angeles closing out the panel.

The NCIS: Hawai’i panel included cast members Vanessa Lachey (Jane Tennant), Alex Tarrant (Kai Holman), Noah Mills (Jesse Boone), Yasmine Al-Bustami (Lucy Tara), Jason Antoon (Ernie Malik), Tori Anderson (Kate Whistler) and Kian Talan Alex Tennant) along with series creators Matt Bosack, Jan Nash and Christopher Silber.

The flagship NCIS panel included cast members Gary Cole (Alden Parker), Sean Murray (Timothy McGee), Katrina Law (Jessica Knight), Wilmer Valderamma (Nick Torres), Diona Reasonover (Kasie Hines), Rocky Carroll (Leon Vance) and Brian Dietzen (Jimmy Palmer) along with showrunner Steven D. Binder.

And, the NCIS: Los Angeles panel included Chris O’Donnell (G Callen), LL Cool J (Sam Hanna), Daniela Ruah (Kensi Blye), Eric Christian Olsen (Marty Deeks), Gerald McRaney (Horace Kilbride), Medallion Rahimi (Fatima Namazi) and Caleb Castille (Devin Roundtree) along with showrunner R. Scott Gemmill.

The key take-aways from the three panels were that each of the cast genuinely like each other and love going into work, and that there is a possibility that all 3 shows might have a crossover. Each of the creative teams said there are discussions about how to make it logistically work. NCIS alum Brian Dietzen suggested that the shows set-up something like the portals in Avengers: Endgame to make it possible, which naturally got a lot of laughs from the audience and fed over into the other panel. And, NCIS newbie Diona Reasonover shared that she and Community alum Gillian Jacobs have a podcast on Apple called Periodic Talks where they talk about all things STEM-related.

RELATED: Paley

Sunday evening the very last panel for this year’s event was Emily in Paris, the Netflix series from creator Darren Star. The first season of the show aired during the height of the pandemic in 2020 with the second season airing on December 21 of last year.

The cast in attendance included Lily Collins (Emily Cooper), Lucas Bravo (Gabriel), Ashley Park (Mindy Chen), Camille Razat (Camille) and Lucien Laviscount (Alfie) as well as series creator Darren Star and Director Andrew Fleming.

During the panel, Darren Star gave new cast member Lucien Laviscount a big surprise, telling him that he will be returning as a series regular for the show’s highly anticipated third season. The shock then joy on the actor’s face was palpable to say the least. The cast also shared that this panel was the first time they were all together on any stage to talk about their show; and Lucas Bravo profusely thanked all the fans for their support of the show.

The PaleyFest 2022 was held at the Dolby Theatre in the heart of Hollywood from April 2 through April 10 by the Paley Center for Media.