Hawaii Creator Jan Nash On Why Vanessa Lachey Was The Right Fit For The Show – Exclusive

In addition to working on "Entertainment Tonight" and "Total Request Live," Lachey has previously hosted various competition and reality shows, including "Wipeout" and "Top Chef Junior." Nash, on the other hand, got her start as a supervising producer on "Ellen" before moving on to "Without a Trace," "Rizzoli & Isles," and "NCIS: New Orleans." Together, they now help make "NCIS: Hawaii" the hit that it is.

But Lachey wasn't necessarily the first person Nash thought of when setting out to cast the lead role.

"She doesn't seem like the obvious choice, and she was not available to us when we started doing our casting because she was tied to another project," says Nash. "We saw a lot of actresses before her, some really talented women, most of whom could do one or the other side of Jane Tennant — either the leader side or the mother side, both of which were important to us. At a certain point, we started talking about whether we had created something that was impossible for us to cast."

But once Lachey came in to audition, Nash says it was a no-brainer to hire her. "Vanessa came in, and she really did manage to convey to us a leader who also happened to be a mother," she says. "She was able to incorporate that into the way she interpreted our material. It seemed obvious after she'd done her reading that she was the person we should cast."

Season 2 of "NCIS: Hawaii" premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Meanwhile, Season 1 is now available on DVD from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment. The six-disc collection features over 45 minutes of bonus content, including featurettes, deleted scenes, extended scenes, and a gag reel.