Exclusive Interview: IT'S SEASON FIVE AND DAVID BOREANAZ IS STILL DIGGING 'BONES'

The star talks about directing the series 100th episode, his priorities on the show and where he sees his career going from here

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN, Contributing Writer - ifmagazine.com
Published 3/29/2010

Word is that changes are afoot for the BONES characters this season, starting with the series’ 100th episode, “The Parts in the Sum of the Whole,” scheduled to air April 8. David Boreanaz, who stars as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth and is one of the show’s producers, directed the pivotal episode.

Naturally, he doesn’t want to give too much away, but here’s what he will say about his hit Fox show, now in its fifth season and already picked up for a sixth.

iiF MAGAZINE: Now that your character Booth realizes he’s in love with Temperance “Bones” Brennan, portrayed by Emily Deschanel, are you playing him any differently?

DAVID BOREANAZ: I would say “cautiously” [so far as] the realization that he has feelings for her, he has these feelings of love, wherever that may go as the season progresses, especially after the hundredth episode. A lot of stuff will kind of come to a head and be revealed, a lot of answers to those questions, what direction they may have to go into, without giving away too much. So I think that he’ll stay the course with her right now and then see how that progresses. But after the hundredth, there will be a lot of answers to those questions.

iiF: The hundredth episode of BONES marks the third time you’ve directed yourself – you previously directed the BONES episode “The Bones That Foam” and the ANGEL episode “Soul Purpose.” Does it get any easier as you do more of it?

BOREANAZ: [laughs] It’s impossible. It’s so stressful. The hard part about it is the amount of prep I had last time. I think I shot like one day and then I was off for six or seven days, and I was able to have a lot of days to prep stuff, and this time around, I’m more in tune with the episode that [was shot immediately beforehand], so I had to find time to prep towards the beginning of the episode. It never gets easy. It’s always a challenge, because you find yourself in a lot of those scenes, especially in the hundredth episode, where you kind of have to remove yourself and kind of get it in your head knowing what the shots are going to be before we go and rehearse, because then you’re rehearsing and you’re thinking like a director, so it’s quite difficult, but I think when you do start, you have to kind of throw it all to the gods and see what happens. You don’t really stress too hard about it. You stress [during preparation] and then when you start shooting, you just have fun, because at the end of the day, it’ll all come out fine.

iiF: How did you feel about the BONES move to Thursday nights?

BOREANAZ: I wasn’t concerned. I mean, there’s nothing really to be concerned about. I can’t control the destiny of the show, I just show up and do my work. All I know is, I’m concerned about my relationship with [Brennan] and maintaining that. As soon as I feel the relationship is being neglected in any way with the show, that’s where my concern comes into play.

iiF: Do you feel that right now, they’re clicking pretty well?

BOREANAZ: I do. I think they’re clicking better now than they ever have. I think they’ll click even better. I think there’s a potential for much to happen. You never know.

iiF: Do you feel that the arcs with Booth’s brother Jared, played by Brendan Fehr, helped move the Booth/Brennan relationship forward a bit?

BOREANAZ: I enjoyed playing the relationship with him – I don’t know if it moves [the Booth Brennan relationship] on at all. I think it moved the relationship to a better understanding of where Booth came from. I don’t think it moved on anything in the relationship with her. I think that kind of stuff comes up with stuff that is coming up with us. I mean, we have some really heavy episodes coming up that maintain a sense of strong character that moves the plot along and I think that’s the beauty of our show.

iiF: You had said you weren’t happy about the whole Gormagon serial killer arc last season …

BOREANAZ: I just didn’t really like the storyline. I just didn’t enjoy the way it was written and the storyline behind it. I’m not a big fan of serial killers.

iiF: The hundredth episode is largely about the first time Booth and Brennan worked together on a case …

BOREANAZ: Yeah, it’s a flashback episode. [It takes place] a year before the pilot. It’s something that involved a judge and a woman that fell down some stairs, and basically that’s just the B plot. The A plot is really the way these two met and how their chemistry kicked off, how he was pretty much dealing with his gambling issues and getting in touch with that, and meeting this woman who he ends up working with, ends up really liking. It will start with the two of us in Sweets’ [the psychiatrist played by John Francis Daley] office, dealing with the book that he wrote about the couple, and we just tell him that he’s made a big mistake, and he doesn’t know about the past and our first case together – the real first case together. As the episode progresses, we’ll go back and forth from the past to the office and have a big reveal at the end. Something happens.

iiF: Since you know you are renewed for a sixth season, are you going to end this season on a cliffhanger?

BOREANAZ: I think someone’s going to get married. That’s all I’ll say.

iiF: Probably not your character …

BOREANAZ [deadpan]: I don’t know.

iiF: As Emily Deschanel’s sister Zooey has done a role on BONES, is there any chance of seeing your father, TV weatherman Dave Roberts, making a guest appearance?

BOREANAZ: Yeah, maybe. My dad’s retired now, so maybe he can come over and play with us next season. Quite possibly. We’ve always had really strong supporting casts that have been part of the BONES team, so that’s really important.

iiF: Looking ahead, do you see yourself prioritizing acting over directing, or directing over acting?

BOREANAZ: I don’t really prioritize either/or. I mean, I have a deal at Fox, so I could actually go in and develop something with them, or go anywhere and develop something with anyone. I’ve been very blessed and fortunate to be on three successful television series. I love the acting part of it, I love the producing part of it, and so I’ll maintain myself in this world and see where it takes me.