NCIS: Hawai'i Star Tori Anderson Shares Swimsuit Photo From the Beach

NCIS: Hawai'i star Tori Anderson spent September enjoying the beach—and a brand new puppy. Anderson, who plays Kate Whistler on the show, shared pictures of herself taking advantage of the beautiful terrain with her new pup Scottie, plus a gorgeous shot of her walking on the beach in a red bikini. "Bite size snack," she captioned the post. Here's how the actress lives her best life in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Anderson credits acting with helping her to get over crippling shyness and anxiety as a child. "I was terrifyingly shy as a child to the point where my younger sister would ask questions for me," she says. "I would actually tap her on the shoulder and get her to ask my questions for me. I was very, very nervous about talking to people in general. So for me, acting started at a young age. My parents put us in a local music festival. We did poetry, monologues, and Shakespeare from the time I was around ten. And I found that there was a freedom I experienced with acting and using someone else's words that I hadn't felt before. I found that it was liberating for me and it encouraged me to help me come out of my shell and take on different roles."

Anderson loves the outdoors, having grown up on Vancouver Island. "It's an incredibly idyllic place to grow up," she says. "I grew up on a farm. It was a beautiful way to grow up. Then I moved to Toronto, and it was a totally different world. Yeah, I miss it. I definitely took it for granted and wish I would have explored more and everything, but that's the beauty of being able to go home is that it's there, and you can always go back and take it in. Yeah, it's a remarkable place. It's stunning, and the people are kind. There's just beauty at every turn."

Anderson takes full advantage of the gorgeous Hawaiian landscape and lifestyle. "We're both getting into surfing here, so I think we're both trying to figure it out," she says. "It's a big shift from Toronto, but we're making the most out of it. Hiking, surfing, I think we maybe might take a sailing class here or there. But, yeah, just trying to embrace it. The water is so beautiful, and the surfing is unreal. We went to the North Shore last year for the surf competitions and watched these surfers from all over the world, and lots from Hawaii just go on these waves. You have to have just an insane amount of respect for them. It's a pretty wild place to see."

Anderson would love the chance to do her own stunts. "I'm like a daredevil — well, I say that but I haven't done a lot of crazy things," she says. "But the thing is they won't let us. I want to do the skydiving and all that stuff, but they won't let [me]. I'll have to do it behind their backs, secretly, maybe."

Anderson is also a big Hallmark Christmas star, and watches the movies every year. "So I'm in my PJs with a cup of coffee, and it's a morning thing," she says. "My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law are huge, huge Hallmark fans and so they've always sort of recorded it from the night before, and then we wake up in the morning, and we'll watch a Hallmark movie. We're all kind of settling down and have had our breakfasts and are just sort of mellowing out on a Sunday or something and watching it. It's sort of that kind of cozy vibe."