Why Clayton Reeves Actor Duane Henry Left NCIS

CBS's long-running military police procedural drama series "NCIS" has featured a myriad of actors since the show first began airing all the way back in 2003. As we know, though, sometimes things don't work out in the television business as they're supposed to, and certain characters might have an expiration date, whether intended or not. In the case of English actor Duane Henry, his departure from "NCIS" was partly due to an unfortunate and tragic circumstance but also his forward-looking, ambitious worldview, which has been driving the star's career ever since he became a professional actor.

Henry played the beloved character Clayton Dante Reeves on "NCIS" for nearly three years (in seasons 13, 14, and 15) between 2016 and 2018. Reeves was an MI6 liaison officer who frequently helped the NCIS Major Case Response Team despite being assigned to the International Desk at the organization. Unfortunately, his days came to an end when he was killed by Army Specialist Kent Marshall (Mark Engelhardt) in season 15, episode 21, "One Step Forward."

The decision to write Henry's character off was actually a mutual one between him and the show's producers, as he shared in a 2018 interview with TVLine. At the same time, this decision was itself the result of a much sadder turn of events.

As Henry recalled in the interview, his character was the brainchild of executive producer and writer Gary Glasberg, who became the series' showrunner in 2011. After his untimely death in 2017 — right after season 14 began — at the age of 50, the "NCIS" writers simply had no clue what to do with Reeves long-term. "I was feeling a bit of panic in people's faces. I could tell that they were not really sure [what the future held]," Henry explained. "I kind of got my bearings together and thought, 'What's going to happen now with the character?'" he added.

Ruminating on his character's fate, it didn't take the actor long to make up his mind about leaving the show and starting to focus on other projects. "['NCIS'] was a life changer, a game changer for me, and something I'll take with me forever and ever," Henry remarked. But he also admitted to having "idle thumbs," adding that at the end of 2017, "I looked around a lot and started questioning things ... My brain starts to go to other places." 

Indeed, once Henry departed from the series, he immediately got his head in the game and jumped into his next role. He was soon after cast as one of the leads in the 2018 Christmas rom-com "A Gingerbread Romance," which he quickly followed up by joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play a Talos-Kree soldier in Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "Captain Marvel." After that, he returned to television, briefly appearing in "What Just Happened??!" and then starring in 2021's "Mistletoe in Montana."