David Boreanaz

Earlier this morning, I interviewed DAVID BOREANAZ who plays Special Agent Seeley Booth on Bones. David Boreanaz is definitely one of the reasons for the success of Bones, and as so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he is one of the Emmy hopefuls this year.

David Boreanaz talked about the relationship between Booth and Brennan, his approach to playing his character, his directing experience, and more. So enjoy the interview!

Congratulations on getting renewed for two seasons. How does it feel?

David Boreanaz: We did. Well, I kind of have always taken the prescription of staying in the moment with these kinds of things. To me, it really is, when they say it’s a two year pick up I just go show to show. You don’t know what can happen to a show over a span of years or time and you’re fortunate to get a pilot made and then even getting a pilot on the air these days is extremely difficult and always has been. So I have always been like, ’It’s great that they said that –’ but to me that’s not really a confirmation of anything. I look at just starting the new season off with a really great flavor from where it left off. We just start from there as far as I’m concerned.

I guess that’s a good approach.

David Boreanaz: Yeah. It’s a very unpredictable business and I’m very fortunate to have been on three shows and have been able to take them as far as I’ve been able to take them. So for me it’s a big blessing.

You’ve been playing this character for four seasons now. How do you feel he has evolved throughout the years?

David Boreanaz: Well, he’s ever changing and evolved with me. So if I’m the type of actor that really works from experience and from the outside in, a lot of what’s going on, on the inside, is stuff that I’m experiencing pretty much around me on a daily basis. Meaning, when I work with Ivana Chubbuck who’s my acting coach every weekend for every show, every scene, every moment we plug in a lot of improvisational moments and things that help me in order to help me keep the character interesting and evolving for the writers and also for the audience and also for myself. If you don’t do it that way you can just really get into a rut. Now other people work differently and have different approaches to their study, but for me it seems to be the best for me as far as the way that it works for me. I really kind of understand it now. Now it’s a little more fun now than it was. It was a little more tedious and back breaking five or six years ago. But going into this season, Booth has evolved in so many different ways. You get into his back story or his history with his family, his relationship with Bones, the conflict. The most important thing for him is his relationship with her and how he keeps that alive. The fact that they had this fantasy sequence at the end of the last episode and everyone was so excited to see the two of them in bed and to actually do it, I mean it gives back to the audience what they’ve been wanting, but it also gets the audience a little upset because they didn’t really get what they wanted. So we have to continuously find ways to do that in order to keep the audience alive and interested in these two characters. I think that the two characters do a great job of achieving the interest and the peak just from what they do from scene to scene and moment to moment and we find those moments every weekend.

What would you say to the fans who want them to become a real couple?

David Boreanaz: I think that you have to really look at what they’re going through now as being a real couple. I mean, they’ve always been a couple. They’ve always been this kind of squabbling married couple. They’ve always been these people that have been together, attached at the hip, solving crimes in crazy situations. They’re always trying to get out and always have each other’s back and have a high respect for each other and they take care of each other and they learn from each other. So I think it’s just steps of a relationship. Some people want to see them married and having sex everyday and some people don’t. Some think it’ll ruin the show. You have to be very careful with all of that stuff. Hart [Hanson] does a really good job at maintaining that, but at the same time keeping a distance and separating them. You kind of have to go through those growing pains with the character to see where it’ll get you six episodes down the line if they’ve been apart for certain reasons and now that they’re back together again. Now that he doesn’t know who she is it should be an interesting first couple of episodes. I don’t think it’ll be a long, like, ’Hey, I don’t know who you are –’ for nineteen episodes. But I come back and I mean it’s just another avenue, an interesting one.

Your character balances Bones in many ways. Do you feel that’s going to be a constant aspect of the show or will there be a moment that it will be unnecessary?

David Boreanaz: Balance in terms of emotionally or physically? What do you mean by that?

I think they feed off of each other. Do you think that’ll continue on the show or will they evolve into something else, not just necessarily romantically either?

David Boreanaz: Right. I think that they will evolve. I mean, through the breakthroughs of each step of the relationship; there was talk of her having a child out of wedlock and him being the father. I mean, those are things that will affect any kind of a relationship personally and professionally and that’s the kind of stuff that we’ll have to handle in the next season, this upcoming season. And where that takes these two characters really comes down to how they approach it and where we are. So I think that they’ll balance each other out in a lot of ways, but they’ll always be at each other’s throats. I mean, they’re really so alike, but they’re so opposite, too, which makes for fun character stuff.

How do you prepare to play Booth? Do you have a process that you follow when you get a script? Is it more comfortable after a few years now?

David Boreanaz: No. It’s never comfortable. If it’s ever comfortable I find that I’m not doing my work. There’s no real reason to be into it, into part of that. For me I take the script, process it, break it down piece by piece, scene by piece, schedule wise. I do a lot of the technical stuff first and really get my mindset into where the scenes are going to be shot, how far apart they are, where they are logistically in the days and days; just all the tedious homework stuff that you do with a script and a character before I work on the meat of the scenes before I work with my acting coach Ivana Chubbuck and so does Emily [Deschanel]. We work on weekends and we sit together and we go over each scene and each moment and we rehearse it. We get into our bodies. We come up with different ideas. We rewrite scenes. We bring it into Hart. We have a rehearsal process. It’s not your normal, ’Okay, I’m in season four so lets just get through the day –’ kind of activity for us. We put a lot of energy and a lot of work into each scene and we’re really proud of that. It’s a big sacrifice for both of us. We work during the week very long hours and you would think that weekends come and we’d like to just sleep and spend time, and we do with our significant others and our family life, but we just find that time to rehearse every weekend. It’s just another added plus for the show and our determination to make it better, every scene and every episode.

Do you have a lot of input as far as the writing, doing scenes in a certain way?

David Boreanaz: Yeah, definitely. I’ve directed shows. I’ve directed ’Bones’. I’m now a producer and have been a producer. Our influence is really much on the idea of getting them excited about something. They write a scene and we’re like, ’Ah, it doesn’t really work for the character. He would do this. How about this?’ I mean, that’s a part of the creative process. In order to achieve any sense of greatness with anything you have to have a creative process. We’re fortunate that Hart is really open to that. He says, ’Okay. Let’s take a look.’ We have meetings with the directors before we shoot each episode and say, ’We’re planning for this. We want to make you aware of that. What’s your idea behind the scene?’ So there’s a lot of give and take and a lot of discussion and it really comes down to the rehearsal process because we’ll come in with the scene and it’ll either be rewritten, maybe not significantly, but maybe rewritten to a point that’s going to affect what the overall tone is going to be, if I throw something in with a wacky prop that I might have or some type of motivation that I would do in the way that I’m playing it differently. They see that and they go, ’Wow, that makes sense. I like that. Lets do that.’ That’s where the joy is and that’s where the magic is.

Can you talk about the experience of directing compared to acting?

David Boreanaz: Well, it’s a lot of work and you’re constantly really doing stuff twenty four hours a day. You’re really working and to be acting and directing at the same time, you know everything about every character, every prop, every environment and situation. So it’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Being an actor and understanding the process and being able to step into those director shoes, it’s a joy to be able to communicate to an actor. Sometimes Emily makes fun of me because I speak sometimes in metaphors. So my language is a little like, ’What did you just say and what did you just mean?’ I think one time I said, ’Be really poignant with your mark,’ meaning step up into your mark with a lot of strength and confidence and hit it hard rather than just saying, ’Hit your mark hard.’ I talk in a different language sometimes. People there look at me like I have nine heads. But I think that just comes from really understanding the process and having a lot of passion for it. The colors and experience and music has always moved me and I try to put all of that into my directing and when I’m talking to an actor. I talk to them on a basis of understanding, like, ’I know what you’re going through. I get what your going through. I want to challenge you in this scene, but I also want to challenge you in a positive way so it’s comfortable for you and at the same time you feel like you’re doing something different with the character that’s interesting. Something that’s unique and you haven’t tried before.’ If it doesn’t work, you have to be able to really listen when you direct. If you don’t know how to listen then I don’t think that directing really would be beneficial for you. Being able to listen is a really important attribute to have as a director, listening to what people are saying, listening to things that are around you, listening to your inner voice, listening to what the actors are saying. It’s a really strong strength that you have to possess to get through it as a director.

Do you think that you’d like to do it again, maybe next season?

David Boreanaz: Yeah. I’m going to do it definitely. I’m definitely going to be directing.

I’m looking forward to that.

David Boreanaz: [laughs] Yeah. Everyone around me is not. Ah, the metaphors and the craziness and the personal life, it’s a mess.

I see on IMDB that you have a movie called ’Our Lady of Victory’. Can you talk about it?

David Boreanaz: I talked to the director the other day and that’s being handled...it’s either going to be distributed by, I think it’s Lionsgate or someone else. I don’t know, but supposedly, hopefully it’ll be on the big screen in the fall of this year or the spring of this year. It’s a period piece and it was a really great film that we shot in Philadelphia starring Carla Gugino who’s just really such a spiritful actress. You talk about working from energy, man. She’s got it. It’s based on a true story about a woman who was the first coach to win a national championship for a woman’s basketball team for the Immaculata University. It’s got kind of like a ’Hoosiers’ or ’Rocky’ kind of feel for that kind of sport. It has a lot of funny moments. It’s shot in Philly and it’s a great film that I hope will get seen. Well, I know it’ll be seen, but it’s just getting it there. It’s emotional. It’s a cool film.

If you could guest star on any other show which one would it be?

David Boreanaz: Probably ’Damages’. I think that I really kind of would definitely want to do something like that. I’m still trying to get on that show. I know I told my agent that I’d really like to be on ’Damages’ as a guest spot or something or kind of a small character that comes on. I just think it’s a really, really smart piece. My mom told me about another one called ’Breaking Bad’ which is another really great series. So one of those two.

Good picks.

David Boreanaz: Yeah. Well, I think ’The Wire’ was probably the best written series on television in a long time. That would’ve been another one. I think they shot that in Philly, too.