Bones may have been a well-oiled machine by the time it finished its final season, but it wasn’t always such meticulous and organized lab work. The first season of the long-running sciency detective show (which is streamable with a Hulu subscription) was apparently a mess behind the scenes thanks to a spiraling lead actress, frustrated crew members and a network that was losing confidence. It all worked out in the end, of course, but lead Emily Deschanel just got candid about how bad things got.
The reveal came during a conversation with popular actor David Duchovny on his podcast, Fail Better. Duchovny himself directed an episode of Bones and has known Deschanel and her family for years, as her dad worked on Twin Peaks. He’s also friends with Bones creator Hart Hanson; so, he was familiar with a bit of the problems during the first season and asked Deschanel about it.
She said she was very overwhelmed during the first season, particularly by all the complicated and technically precise dialogue she had to learn. As a forensic anthropologist, her character communicated using a ton of really specific medical terms. Throw in the fact that they were working 14 to 16 hours a day with limited time to memorize dialogue, and she apparently would regularly joke about going home to “cry in a bathtub every night.”
Behind on sleep and un-confident in her dialogue, she would apparently have trouble getting through scenes. Then she would start fixating on how the crew was probably mad at her because she was making the long days even longer, and it would cause a spiral, which would make everything worse.
The room would start to close in. I didn’t know I was having panic attacks, but I was basically having panic attacks.
In the midst of all the on-set problems, Deschanel was late to set after a problem with her commute, and everything came to a head. She apparently had a face-to-face conversation with Hanson, who was also the showrunner, and he let her know that the higher-ups were starting to get concerned about her work ethic. Here’s a portion of the story…
Hart knocked on my trailer door, which was not a usual thing. He wasn’t knocking on my door often. He took me aside and said the studio has concerns about your work. They said that I was late and unprepared. I get emotional just thinking about it now.
Deschanel said she felt a lot of shame after the conversation. She said it felt like being called out as a person more than an actor, but in retrospect, it wound up being a really good thing. She was never late to set again and worked with Hanson to figure out a schedule that was more manageable. They gave her someone to help work on her pronunciation and line memorization and would keep her out of a scene or two each episode so she could prep for the more complicated ones. Bones was eventually picked up for a second season, and by then, they were in a much better rhythm, with her even working with co-star David Boreanaz on weekends to get more in sync.
Bones ultimately ran for twelve seasons and is, by pretty much any definition, one of the more popular procedurals of the last few decades. Fans still cannot get enough of the chemistry between Deschanel’s scientist Dr. Temperance Brennan and Boreanaz’s Special Agent Seeley Booth, which pushed the show in a different direction than was planned. In retrospect, she was quietly clearly the right person for the role. It just took a few panic attacks and a lot of long nights to get there.
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