LL Cool J, Chris O'Donnell Find Common Ground
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NCIS: Los Angeles costars LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell might be primetime’s newest odd couple, but behind the scenes the two actors have much in common.
“There just wasn’t space to wonder, ‘What’s Chris gonna think of my rap background? Is he gonna be square? Is he gonna get me?’” LL recalls in a new interview with PARADE, because their sameness was quickly apparent.
“Then I discovered he has five kids, and I have four. Here’s the strangest part. I found out that our two fourth-graders, our 9-year-olds, are at opposing schools, and their basketball teams compete.”
For Chris, the show couldn’t have happened at a better time. “I definitely had those moments, like any actor, when you get anxious and think, ‘When am I going to work again?’” he confesses. “But I would feel that way even when I had every offer in the world coming to me.”
Once he became a father five times over, however, the feeling was magnified.
“I felt a little more of the anxiety that came with the responsibility of being a parent. I was looking for something that would allow me to stay in Los Angeles, which was best for my kids.”
LL and wife Simone Johnson have four children: Najee, 20, Italia, 19, Samaria, 14, and Nina, 9. Chris — married since 1997 to Caroline Fentress — is dad to Lily Anne, 10, Christopher, 9, Charles, 6 ½, Finley, 3 ½, and Maeve, 2.
NCIS: Los Angeles airs Tuesday’s at 9 p.m. on CBS.
Source: PARADE
