LOS ANGELES — The report of this death is not an exaggeration: Rocky Carroll’s character Leon Vance, director at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, died Tuesday on “NCIS” after appearing on the CBS series for 18 of its 23 seasons so far.

For Carroll, one of the worst parts, obviously, was that his character would be dead and he was out of an acting job. But the best parts? The team managed to keep the plot twist a secret for months, no leaks. Plus the actor had a good long run on a hit show.

Carroll told Variety in an interview published Tuesday evening that he has “had a little time to wrap my mind around it and come to terms with it” since he was told in November that his character was going to die. His final scene was shot Dec. 11, he said.

Still, he wondered about the finality of Vance’s death, given that other characters who left the show have been shipped off, gone but not gone. When series lead Mark Harmon left the show in 2021, his character Jethro Gibbs simply retired to Alaska. He’s gone fishing, not gone forever.

“So if you wanted this character to go,” Vance told the trade, “why are we being so final about it, when everybody else just gets sent off to another country?”

But, he said, the show wanted to “do something spectacular” for its 500th episode. It was time for Vance to die. The story of his death broke the show’s mold, unfolding in nonlinear fashion. Screen Rant said it was the “best character send-off that the show has done in years — arguably even better than Gibbs’ exit.”

Carroll couldn’t quite believe they managed to keep Vance’s departure from this mortal coil under wraps. He called it “pretty cool” that in the age of social media, nobody leaked the story. He expected the episode would be “a huge shock for people” who are fans of the show, with only a small circle of “NCIS”-related folks in the loop before Tuesday night.

And despite the finality of Vance’s death, there are seven “NCIS” episodes yet to come this season and the series has been renewed for a 24th iteration. Carroll has directed more than two dozen episodes of the show since 2015, per IMDb, and was already back on set in January to direct another. As for the rest of it, he seems pretty zen.

“I’ve been a character on this series for 18 years. Most Hollywood careers don’t last 18 years. So to be able to play one character on one of the most popular shows in the world for 18 seasons, that’s the equivalent of living to be 105,” Carroll told Variety.

And, he added later in the interview, “18 years of consistent work on the most watched show in the world gives you a little bit of cushion. I might be doing a production in a 50-seat theater somewhere in Hollywood and having the time of my life. For the last 18 years, I’ve had the best part-time job in Hollywood. So there’s not a whole lot to be upset about.”

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