Interview: David Boreanaz’s Run-Down on Bones

By Quendrith Johnson
Fancast.com

Do we really need another tooth-and-nail medical detective show? If it’s Bones with Emily Deschanel (Cold Mountain) and David Boreanaz (Angel), which airs tonight on FOX, that answer would be yes. Because Bones’s Deschanel, whose nickname is ‘Bones’ a la Dr. McCoy (Star Trek), coupled with David Boreanaz makes for some great chemistry. Boreanaz plays ex-Army Ranger Steely Booth as lead dog on the trail sniffing out danger for Dr. Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan. Sister of Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous), Emily’s the forensic hottie in this pairing. Hunky Boreanaz’s character is aptly named because he radiates a kind of armored and isolated charm. Of Italian and Portuguese extraction, David grew up in Philly having to defend his name, fighting like a kid action hero against bullies on the playground. Aside from a cool Season 4 opener set in Great Britain, ‘Yanks in the UK,’ Borenanaz admitted he would like to do more a-kicking on the show too, apparently, as he told Fancast recently on a conference call. Did we mention the former vampire in Buffy, 37, also has a great sense of humor? Yes, he’s married, ps, and for the record, the last name is pronounced ‘Bo-re-ah-nuz,’ emphasis on the ‘Ah’ sound.

What were your favorite TV shows when you were growing up and the kind of guys that you watched on TV?

Well, growing up, it was like Starsky & Hutch, Planet of the Apes, Chico and the Man, Soap…. I mean that’s for like the early days when I remember watching television, stuff like that. Those are the things that kind of influenced me. James Garner too was big. He was fantastic.

What about those characters totally got you as a viewer?

Well, I mean Starsky & Hutch, it was just two guys. They were really cool in a car that just did stuff. Chico and the Man was an unorthodox kind of comedy and Freddie Prinze was just an amazing talent; Soap, a great humorous dialogue.

Then also like all the Norman Lear stuff. I mean his dialogue is priceless. You couldn’t even show some of that stuff today the way that was written. I mean to me, that’s the best stuff ever put out there. You can’t touch that stuff.

Yes, it had a lot of social commentary.

Even today if you aired some of that stuff, it would be too much for network television. I mean that’s just way smart and not being able to identify it at the time, but being affected by it obviously because I remember it now. That’s stuff I inspire to. So, things like that.

Earlier you mentioned wanting to sort of emulate the Moonlighting character. Bruce Willis obviously had a brilliant career. Are you still looking toward movies and kind of following the arc of his career path?

I’d love to, yes. I actually bumped into him I think it was the second season of Bones and I bumped into him and he couldn’t have been nicer. If I had to model anything, it would be like kind of a list of him or the way his career has unfolded and getting a really good action piece, to really jump into something that I love to do.

I mean I think one thing the show misses out is using more action stuff with me. I think they used maybe 3% or 4% in the past three years and I know Hart is going to focus more on doing more action sequences that help that in this area because I mean it’s just one area that I love to do. I love doing that kind of stuff.

What did Bruce say about the series? Or did he say, “Hey, I saw”–

He was very cool. He’s like, “Yes, I know the series.” He said, “You’re doing a great job.” I said, “Well, I’m trying to follow in your footsteps, following your lead because I have such high respect for you” and he couldn’t have been nicer.

Well, you should have asked him for a movie role.

What?

You should have asked him for a movie role.

You can’t ask people for movie roles. You have to just kind of be at the right time in the right place.

Yeah, I know, I was kidding –

It was a really cool moment.

Back to BONES, what can we expect from your character this season?

I really kind of get back into Booth’s past. We’ll see his apartment. We’ll see where he’s living this year, how he lives.

One specific idea that I have in general that I really want to exploit is Booth is, on the outside, very charming. He has all of his shields up. But, here is a guy who was an Army ranger. He was a sniper and we touched on it in the first episode. In the season, that came out he was tortured and he got hit in the shins.

It would be nice to see Booth; see how he gets ready in the morning, how difficult it is for him and how we give a little bit more vulnerability towards this character, to see him kind of start the day and see how hard it is for him because when you do see him, he’s always on the move.

He always has all of this stuff that protects him, but what really lies underneath all that is good stuff. I think we’ll exploit that this year.