Mark Harmon's New Role as a Playboy Cop

Mark Harmon has drawn a large and loyal following playing Special Agent Jethro Gibbs on the hit CBS series NCIS. But this Sunday you can watch his debut in a much different kind of TV role -- a wealthy police official with a proclivity for designer suits, fast cars and beautiful women!

Harmon plays the Deputy Chief of Police for the city of Minneapolis in the movie John Sandford's Certain Prey, airing this Sunday at 9 p.m. on USA. The actor had to work around his busy NCIS schedule and the film was shot in just 20 days in Minneapolis and Toronto. The story is based on the novel by best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner John Sandford.

Harmon said his intrigue with Sandford's work got him interested in the project. "I started just as a reader of the books. John Sandford was someone I admired. I admired his writing style and then years later you get an opportunity with people who own the rights to this to say: 'Hey is this something you might be interested in trying to make into a movie?' So yeah, that's how it started for me."

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The scene is set when a cop is shot after witnessing the murder of the wife of a local real estate lawyer. Harmon's character Lucas Davenport is called in and put on the case and proceeds to track down two beautiful serial killers -- one a hit woman and the other a high-powered attorney.

Harmon had this to say when asked whether there are similarities between his NCIS character and this role: "I think they're really different. I mean ideally as an actor you choose a part that challenges you, and this certainly did that. I don't see Gibbs and Davenport to be similar much at all. (Davenport) is a ladies man. He's a wealthy guy, he drives nice cars and dresses in Armani and chases the ladies. And yet, what he really likes more than any of it is being a cop."