DAVID by ©Dave Itzkoff

Ten out of Ten

©Emmy Magazine (June 2007)
(photo by ©James Stenson)

[ thanks to © Lostakasha for the scans - used with permission]

transcribed by ©Boreanaz.net

If you're among the squeamish but dedicated viewers of Fox's Bones who can watch the show only from behind the couch or with a hand over your face, you're not alone : David Boreanaz shares your pain.
'I have seen bits and pieces of my show," confesses the star of hte hit crime-investigation drama. " I have not seen the completed pilot, and I have not seen one episode beginning to end."

It's not that he flinches at the sight of Bones's typically morbid milieu: trunks that pop open to reveal corpses missing their skeletons or graveyards whose occupants refuse to stay underground.
What really freaks out Boreanaz - who plays Seeley Booth, the rugged FBI agent and perfect foil to forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) - is the sight of himself on screen. "I drive myself crazy," he says. "I'm getting a little bit better at it, but I really don't like to look at what I do,"

By now, you'think he'd be used to glimpsing his image on a television set. After seven years as a repentant vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and his own spinoff series, Angel, Boreanaz proved he couldn't be pigeonholed. He traded his fangs for an FBI badge and leapt onto Bones just one year after Angel ended its run.
But that interim year was a restless one for Boreanaz, who prefers a state of perpetual motion : a new TV project, in which he would have played a hitman for hire, never made it past development, and a pilot he shot for J. J. Abrams, about acon men and federal agents, didn't get picked up.
And when he was asked to meet with Bones executive producers Barry Josephson and Hart Hanson, the initial encounter probably could have gone better. ("I was not in a good mood," Boreanaz says. "Something weird happened.") But Josephson and Hanson persevered, as did then -Fox programming chief Gail Berman, and their phone calls to the actor struck a chord with him.
"I'm a very personable guy," Boreanaz says, " and if somebody puts their effort into being straight up with me - especially in Hollywood - that can outweigh a lot."

Two seasons later (with a third on the way), Boreanaz finds himself fully invested in the role of Agent Booth : after a typical eighty-hour workweek, he and Deschanel often spend weekends training with noted acting coach and "secret weapon" Ivana Chubbuck. And for extra credit, Boreanaz will log a few hours with Michael Grasso, a veteran LAPD officer and industry consultant. "We go target shooting, we test new guns," says Boreanaz. "For the beginning of a third season, we'll work on some fun interrogation stuff. It's cool."

What continues to draw Boreanaz - and viewers - back to Bones in the unconventional relationship Booth shares with Brennan, a Frank Capra-esque friendship that's always on the vers of blossoming into something bigger, but never quite crosses the line.

"We're not a soapy, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy kind of show," Boreanaz says. "She's a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock-and-roll. You flirt with that and maintain it as much as you can. But how many years do you want to drag the damn thing out?"

Next season, Boreanaz will have a greater say in these matters: he'll carry a producing credit in addition to his starring role. And though he has some ambitious ideas-he'd love to see James Garner guest-star as Booth's grandfather, for one - he'd rather see Booth and Brennan continue their gradul evolution as characters than make drassict changes just to shake things up.

"I'm all about the steady climb," Boreanaz says. "I'm not a fast sprinter, I'm a marathon guy."