Cote de Pablo

María José de Pablo Fernández,[1] better known as Cote de Pablo (born November 12, 1979), is a Chilean-American actress and recording artist. Born in Santiago, Chile, she moved to the United States at the age of ten, where she studied acting.

De Pablo co-hosted episodes of the Latin American talk show Control with former Entertainment Tonight host, Carlos Ponce, at the age of 15 before attending Carnegie Mellon University to study music and theatre. After appearing in a number of small television roles, she was cast to portray main character Ziva David in the CBS television series NCIS in 2005. De Pablo won an ALMA Award for the role in 2011, and NCIS became the most watched television program in the United States during Season 10 (2012–13)

De Pablo was born in Santiago, Chile, to Francisco de Pablo and María Olga Fernández. She has a younger sister, Andrea, and a brother, Francisco, who works as a disc jockey. When de Pablo was ten years old, her mother, María Olga Fernández, took a job in Miami, Florida, at a Spanish language television network. There, de Pablo attended Arvida Middle School and New World School of the Arts where she studied Musical Theatre. In the Fifth Grade, she found many people could not properly pronounce her first name of "María José," so she asked them to call her "Coté," a common Chilean nickname for "María José." De Pablo attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she studied Music and Theater and appeared in several plays, including And the World Goes 'Round, The House of Bernarda Alba, Indiscretions, The Fantasticks, and A Little Night Music. She graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater.

De Pablo is in a long-term relationship with actor Diego Serrano